Elsa Sahal

Born in Paris in 1975, Elsa Sahal lives and works in the French capital. A graduate of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, she has established herself as one of the leading figures in contemporary ceramic sculpture. Since the late 1990s, her work has explored the body, sensuality, and the metamorphoses of living forms through a free, provocative, and resolutely carnal approach to material.

Her sculptures, modeled and glazed into often organic shapes, oscillate between fragility and strength. With boldness, they engage with themes of gender, femininity, and identity, while questioning the boundary between abstraction and figuration. Her work has been exhibited in numerous international institutions, including the Monnaie de Paris (Womenhouse, 2017), the Musée des Arts Décoratifs de Paris (Circuits Céramiques, 2010), MO.CO Montpellier, the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht (Ceramix, 2015), and the Fondation d’entreprise Ricard.

Recipient of several awards, including the MAIF Sculpture Prize (2008) and the Georges Coulon Prize from the Institut de France (2013), Elsa Sahal has also completed residencies at the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres, the Archie Bray Foundation (USA), and Alfred University (New York). Her works are now held in numerous public and private collections in France and abroad, affirming a practice in which ceramics become a true space of transgression and freedom.