Daphné Mandel (French, born 1975) has been living and working in Hong Kong since 2008. She completed her degree of architecture and urban planning in Versailles (France) in 2000.

Primarily working with painting, she credits her Dutch grandmother, celebrated textile artist Wilhelmina Fruytier, for inspiring her creative journey.

 

Mandel explores the in-between spaces that fall neither into the rural nor the urban. They are the fringes, the transitional landscapes at the edges of Hong Kong. 

Her artworks incorporates contemporary digital support and tactile traditional techniques, like painting and collage. This conceptually echoes Hong Kong’s urban aesthetic: one that is a juxtaposition of old and new, heritage and contemporary, derelict and polished. Her works are often infused with aesthetics of illusions, fantasies and poetry.

 
Mandel’s works have been exhibited in shows organized by art institutions including Taipei Dangdai (Gallery EXIT, 2024), Art Basel Hong Kong (Gallery EXIT 2022, 2023 and 2024), ART021 (Gallery EXIT 2023, Shanghai), Hong Kong Time Rift (Gallery EXIT, Hong Kong, 2022), Small is Beautiful XXXIX (Flowers Gallery, London, 2021), Photofairs Shanghai (Pékin Fine Art, 2019), Shek-O Sublime (Gallery EXIT, Hong Kong, 2019), Hong Kong Dimensions (Blue Lotus Gallery, Hong Kong, 2018) and Hong Kong Vanitas (Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences, 2017). 

 
Mandel co-founded the Paris based landscape architecture and urban planning firm Gilot & Mandel Paysage. Together with her partner, she was awarded the "Best Young Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture Professionals" by the French Ministry of Culture in 2006.

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​Daphne Mandel co-directed with Guy Bertrand a short documentary film entitled Cha Guo 茶粿 that celebrates the hidden world of a Hong Kong rural village. The film Premiere will take place at the Hong Kong Arts Center on 27 November 2024.