BIO
Maud Leclair (b. 1991) is a French visual artist living and working in Williamsburg, NYC. She creates opulent landscapes of colorful forms on paper, ceramics, and murals.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work investigates how opulence is constructed and experienced beyond dominant definitions rooted in consumption, luxury goods, exclusive spaces, and curated experiences. Against this landscape, I ask: what is opulence, and where does it exist outside socially sanctioned symbols of wealth? Rather than treating opulence as ownership or display, I approach it as an emotional condition that holds both intensity and serenity. I am interested in how visual form can sustain these states simultaneously, producing images that feel at once lavish and soothing, charged and calm.
My current body of work centers on portraiture. Through monoprint, I portray people I love and admire, approaching them as vessels of abundance rather than subjects to document. I am interested in translating intangible forms of richness—their erudition, generosity, creativity, emotional depth—into visual form.
Paper is central to my practice, both materially and conceptually. Historically positioned within Western art hierarchies as fragile or secondary, it becomes in my work a site of density, saturation, and insistence. I am particularly interested in the tension between vulnerability and strength, and between minimal means and maximal intensity.
My process is intentionally slow and labor-intensive, resisting contemporary cultures of speed and consumption. Ultimately, my work challenges assumptions about where abundance originates and how it is perceived, locating opulence less in objects than in states of emotional, intellectual, and sensory fullness. Through this sustained attention to material and duration, I construct images in which intensity arises not from accumulation, but from restraint, focus, and care.
EDUCATION
2017 MA, Art History, Ecole du Louvre, Paris, France
2017 MA, Public Policy, Sciences Po, Paris, France
2014 MA, Philosophy, La Sorbonne, Paris, France
2015 BA, Art History, Ecole du Louvre, Paris, France
2012 BA, Literature, Henri IV, Paris, France
EXHIBITIONS & RESIDENCIES
BMCC Annual Faculty Exhibition, Shirley Fiterman Art Center, NYC, USA, 2026
Sogni d’Oro, Galerie Enfant Terrible, Paris, France, 2023
Gestura II, Marie Jose Gallery, London, UK, 2022
Venomous, D Contemporary, London, UK, 2022
Bailey House Benefit Auction, Artsy, New York, 2022
Artists Working at The Met, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, USA, 2018
Fashion Night Out, Set NYC, NYC, USA, 2018
Barbery Residency, printmaking residency, Kyoto, Japan, 2015
TEACHING
NYU, Department of Art History | 2021—present
Southeast Asian Art
Himalayan Art
How to Understand Buddhist Art
Indian Buddhist Art
Buddhist Masterpieces from across Asia
CUNY, Department of Art History | 2025—present
Survey of Art History
LECTURES
Buddhist Demons: Himalayan Art and the Symbolism of Fierce Imagery (NYU, 2024)
Early Buddhist Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYU, 2023)
CURATORIAL EXPERIENCE
Curatorial Assistant, South and Southeast Asian Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art | 2017-2021
Tree & Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India, 200 BCE–400 CE
Crowns of the Vajra Masters: Ritual Art of Nepal