Self-portrait as a frog wearing a bariolé trikini

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Elsa Sahal

Elsa Sahal (b. 1975, Paris) is a Paris-based sculptor known for her ceramic works evoking organic forms that disrupt the representation of gender and sexuality through the enigma of morphology. Elsa Sahal sustainably works with blocks of clay, by making use of the permeability, bleakness and transformability of the material. Her ceramic sculptures translate the sensuality of the elements that they are made of: clay, humidity, the imprint of the modeling body, the colors and textures applied to them. They are fired and revived with the use of enamels at the end of the production process. Her assemblages of fragmentary mono or polychrome, glossy or matte shapes constitute a joyful grammar by evoking the feeling of the body. Her sculptures act within the field of female corporeality in its most intimate dimensions, with a view to challenging the objectification perpetuated on women's bodies as objects of desire and fertility. It is through irony that Elsa Sahal questions the injunction addressed to women to become and remain available sexual and maternal bodies. A graduate of the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts (National Institute of Fine Arts) in Paris in 2000, she has been the recipient of numerous awards and residencies, including the Georges Coulon Prize for sculpture, awarded by the Institut de France (2013) and the Manufacture nationale de Sévres (2007-08). She has taught at the ENSAV National School of Architecture in Versailles, the École des arts décoratifs (Institute of Decorative Arts) in Strasbourg and Alfred University New York State College of Ceramic. Elsa Sahal has also had numerous exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including at the Museum of Art and Design, New York (2013), the National Museum of Women in the arts, Washington DC (2018), the Bonnefantenmuseum (2016), Maastricht and the Monnaie de Paris (2017). These works are now part of the public collections of the Cnap (2009, 2020), the FMAC (2017) and the Frac Normandie Caen (2021).