What happens when two artists from opposite sides of the Atlantic come together? In the work of American artist Anne Marie Grgich and French artist Claudine Loquen, the answer is a fascinating meeting of imagination, colour, storytelling and personal expression.

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Based in Tacoma, Washington, Anne Marie Grgich is a self-taught artist whose work has gained international attention in the world of outsider and self-taught art.

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Grgich works with collage, painting, found images, books and other materials, bringing them together to create richly layered works. Faces, figures, words and fragments of images seem to emerge from one another, inviting viewers to look closely and discover something new each time.

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Grgich’s work primarily explores memory, identity, emotion and the many layers of human experience.

Grgich has exhibited extensively in the United States and internationally, including in France, Canada and Australia. Her work has been featured in Raw Vision and publications about outsider art, and is held in public and private collections, including the Musée de la Création Franche in France and the Milwaukee Art Museum. In 2023, she received an Artist Grant from the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation. Her distinctive imagery has even found its way into the fashion world through a collaboration with Japanese fashion house Comme des Garçons.

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French artist Claudine Loquen takes viewers into a very different—but equally imaginative—world.

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Born in Normandy, Loquen is a painter, sculptor and illustrator whose work is associated with art naïf, art singulier and art brut. Her paintings are filled with colourful characters, women, animals, flowers and symbols, often drawing inspiration from mythology, literature and history.

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There is a strong sense of storytelling in Loquen's work. Her paintings feel like scenes from a dream or fragments of a forgotten story. Women, in particular, play an important role in her art. Loquen has explored the lives and stories of women who have been overlooked by history, bringing them back into the light through her distinctive visual language.

Her work has been exhibited internationally, including in France, Belgium, Japan and Canada. Her exhibitions include presentations at the National Art Center Museum in Tokyo, the Musée d'Art Spontané in Brussels and the Musée international d'art naïf de Magog in Quebec.

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Bringing Grgich and Loquen together creates an exciting conversation between two very different artistic voices.

Grgich builds her worlds from layers, fragments and found images. Loquen builds hers from colour, characters, stories and symbolism. Yet both artists encourage us to slow down, look closely and allow our imaginations to take over.

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Together, Anne Marie Grgich and Claudine Loquen invite us into worlds that are mysterious, playful, emotional and deeply personal—and remind us that there are many ways to see, understand and experience the world around us.