Elsa Sahal

"Abstract and figurative, adorable and abject, elegant and lanky, masculine and feminine, pathetic and impactful, Elsa Sahal's ceramics give birth to a world as disturbing as it is joyful." Mara Hoberman.

All of Elsa Sahal's work is marked by a singular gap between ceramics, a very ancient technique often associated with craftsmanship, and a contemporary, embodied and living statement, which only this medium and its specific materiality allow her to express.

Appearing on the artistic scene at the end of the 90s, Elsa Sahal followed the teaching of Georges Jeanclos at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris from which she graduated. Over time, she developed a personal vocabulary oscillating between a disturbing figuration and a joyful abstraction, establishing a strange biomorphic repertoire, a language through which the body and femininity, constantly questioned, unfold through organs and isolated orifices, or even visceral patterns highlighted by strong colors and by the enamel covering the sandstone.

This unique work occupies an important place on the contemporary art scene. Exhibited by the Ricard Foundation in 2008, supported and followed, from 1999, by the Claudine Papillon gallery, Elsa Sahal has notably received the MAIF Prize for sculpture (2008) and the contemporary sculpture prize of the Francesco Messina Foundation, Casabeltrame, in Italy (2007).

Work published with the support of the National Center for Plastic Arts and Le Carré, Scène nationale-contemporary art center of the Château-Gontier region.

• 22 x 29 cm
• 192 pages
• 200 illustrations
• Hardcover
• ISBN: 978-2-91554-2813

Text in French only

CAMILLLE MORINEAU est conservatrice du patrimoine, et directrice d’AWARE (Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions).

MARA HOBERMAN est curateur free-lance, critique d’art et éditeur. Elle écrit régulièrement pour Artforum, ArtAgenda et le New York Times et est également éditeur de numéros spéciaux pour Artforum.