One day, coming back from an exhibition, my father talked to me about Cube…

I finally found the initial Cube…

I wanted to express Universality.

I searched for writings and symbols.

It is through them that the magic of sharing occurs: people stop, look, examine, look for the letter, the word written in their language.

A smile always appears on their face when they find it.

Climbing, climbing, rising, balancing: this is Life.

Cube7 – 2012, Illuminated sculpture
Aluminium – Height 15.09 ft
7 cubes of 23,6 x 23,6 inches : 7 panels with symbols, 7 glass panels
28 panels with lettering
Also made in 8,53 ft and 31,5 inches

In 2010, across from my studio: 700 m² of free space.

I had dreamt of The Derwich becoming bigger.

In a month everything was organized.

I had found the team.

The adventure was starting.

When it came to the skirt’s plaster (89m²) I asked myself “How am I going to do that?”

A man appeared, he had retired the day before… a plasterer.

The magic could continue.

During the finishing touches, a man walks through the door.

We talk beneath The Derwich… he says he sees it in Turkey.

This idea stays in my mind…As soon as it was finished, in July of the same year,

Derwich Monumenta left, by land and by sea, for Istanbul.

Twenty-five people for one energy.

The pleasure of creating, of facing and resolving technical, organisational and human challenges.

Magic was born from itself, everything was there: the space, the light, the synchronicity.

Derwich Monumenta, 2010
Metal and resin structure
2 copies: 22,9 ft and 27,9 ft, 5 tons/11 023,11 lb

I too started to spin, and spin…

And every time I fell, and I fell…

And I wanted to understand all the meanings of this dance: the philosophical, historical and aesthetic ones.

I wanted to capture their trance, to express the lightness of their spinning clothes.

This is the genesis of this work: a twirling and a turning point in my creation and the first man I ever created.

Le Derwich, 2009
Bronze
Made in 3,60ft, 440,9 lb and 5 inches

Mag was born out of a bucket when I was just starting to sculpt.

At the end of a posing session, I wasn’t satisfied.

I didn’t like either her arms or her head.

I decided to cut off everything.

I twisted what remained of the torso and threw it in a bucket.

It was a friend who convinced me to take it out:

“Look, you should finish it…”

I took this little clay sculpture out of the bucket.

I put it on a shelf.

Years went by.

Until the day I found it again, sitting right where I had left it.

Two months later she had grown, transformed into a golden bronze sculpture of 3,60 ft by 4,26 ft.

Mag, 2007
Bronze – Height 3,60 ft x Width 4,26 ft, 441 lb.

She is also an order from my father,
who one day pointed at L’Endormie (the little one)
that I had given him a few years earlier:

“You should make this one, but bigger” he told me.

When I delivered Endormie to him,
he only said:

“This is not what I ordered, it’s not the same!”
“Wait until the sun moves to the West…”
was my only reply.

Three days later he called me to apologise.

When I sculpted Endormie
I was pregnant with my third child.

I only found out later.

Endormie, 2001
Bronze – 9,8 ft x 3,3 ft, 1763 lb

In 1998, my father, who was my mentor, pointed with a playful tone

at Le Renversé, which was on my desk:

“I like the pose, you should make it bigger”.

I started to work on a three meter wax piece.

It was this wax draft that seduced my first “monumental” client.

He imagined Le Renversé de Diane at his home, next to the sea.

I discovered his immense and magnificent park.

I decided to make it even bigger.

I move into a friend’s studio, himself an artist,
who will help me with this first enlargement.

When it was time to go to the foundry,
we had to break the studio’s door to get the sculpture through,
it was over five meters long (and 1m10 high).

Le Renversé de Diane required nine steps from the casting to the burnishing.

It is twelve hundred kilos
of five millimetre thick
hollow bronze.

The monumental adventure was starting.

Le Renversé de Diane, 2000
Bronze – 17,38 ft x 3,60 ft

It was created in a 15m² studio … very little room.

It touched the ceiling.

I had no way to take a step back.

To take it to the caster, it had to be taken out in separate pieces.

It was only after the casting that I really discovered it.

In conclusion: very little room for passion.

Fusion, 2003
Bronze – 10.5 ft x 11,5ft, 4409,24 lb
Also made on order, 17 inches x 17 inches with and without vent

It was also a challenge: making a very tall, very long sculpture.

Technically it was very complicated.

I didn’t know where I could make it.

It was the man from the foundry that showed me a place: I created Palmïé in his working space, his foundry, surrounded by noise and dust.

Palmïé, 2006
Bronze – 11,5 ft

La tête de l’Homme, 2011
Bronze – 9,18 ft tall

I wanted to make a statue
that could fit inside somewhere,

in a hall,

in a living room…

La Marche, 2008
Bronze or resin – 6,26 ft tall