EXHIBITION
WOMEN SCULPTRESSES OF TODAY,
tribute to Camille Claudel
from April 4 to May 31, 2026
At the Château de l'Islette, a place deeply linked to the creation of Camille Claudel, four contemporary sculptors are brought together to create a dialogue between their works and a still vivid memory.
Through this exhibition, the castle wishes to highlight a demanding practice, both physical and sensitive, where matter, gesture and time fully engage the body and emotion.
In this place steeped in history, where, among other things, things were conceived The WaltzThis presentation echoes essential themes in the work of Camille Claudel: the couple, in its tension and fusion; hands as a language of emotion; dance and the suspended movement of the body; the portrait of a child, between fragility and truth; as well as nature and the river, which the artist loved to draw during her stays at L'Islette.
Beyond the forms, this exhibition is part of the legacy of a hard-won freedom and an intensity of vision. Camille Claudel profoundly renewed sculpture through a more vivid and expressive approach to the body and matter, giving birth to a nervous and inhabited modeling, breaking with the academic codes of her time.
This tribute aims to be vibrant: not an imitation, but a resonance; not a repetition, but a continuity. It invites us to open a dialogue between yesterday and today, between memory and contemporary creation.
The Château de l'Islette is pleased to host this exhibition and to bring to life, through it, a place where creation continues to express itself and to engage in dialogue with its history.
The female sculptors
Marie-Ève Breguet
Pocé-sur-Cisse (37)
"Sculpting or dancing is like speaking in silence."
It is in her workshop in Amboise that Marie-Ève Breguet indulges her passion with sensuality.
For her, sculpture is like her other passion, classical dance: a constant search for perfection and beauty.
Making and unmaking by encountering the material, in the search for balance and harmony, has been a happy relaxation for her since her first steps in sculpture in 2009 in the workshop of the Nîmes sculptor Cathray, in order to acquire the basics of modeling.
Marie-Ève happily moves from the silence of her studio to the clatter of the foundry when the molten bronze comes to embrace the smallest details of her work.
For the past two years, it has been evolving towards the "Pas de Deux", where its couples of dancers blend grace, sensuality and emotion.
The life and work of Camille Claudel have always fascinated her; exhibiting at L'Islette is a true joy for her.
Sarah Scouarnec
Amboise (37)
"My sculpture is poetic-surrealist."
Sarah Scouarnec's career has been built in the shadow of artworks and their silent presence. For more than twenty years, she has been a lighting designer for film, theatre and museums, notably at the Rodin Museum and the Camille Claudel Museum.
Coming from an artistic background and married to a sculptor, she has always been immersed in creative work. In 2021, working with clay became a natural extension of this journey for her.
Her work explores a poetic-surrealist dimension centered on the human figure, revealing inner states and metamorphoses. Nourished by surrealism and symbolism, it questions the connection to nature, dreams, and feminine power.
Her expressive hands, echoing those of Camille Claudel, bear witness to the influence of the latter and of Auguste Rodin, foundational figures of her apprenticeship.
Through this tribute, she offers sculptures inspired by themes that are dear to her: the hand, love, childhood and mythology.
Flo from M.
Pont-de-Ruan (37)
Flo de M., after attending several amateur workshops, made a career change in 2018 to passionately pursue sculpture. She creates terracotta and bronze pieces using clay, wax, or sometimes plaster.
Her favorite themes are motherhood, childhood, dance, the beach, reading, the latter theme having allowed her to create, over several months, reading characters of all ages, highlighting the pleasure of reading and the interactions around the book.
Flo de M. seeks above all to convey, through his characters, what amazes or moves him: the tenderness of a gesture, the beauty of an attitude, the fleeting nature of a movement, the links between 2 or 3 characters…
Florence de Flaghac,
Artist name: Chésade,
Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine (37)
Born in Paris in 1960, Chésade discovered modeling and the pleasure of clay at the age of twelve at the Decorative Arts workshop. As a teenager, she enriched her training by studying classical drawing at the Grande Chaumière. After preparatory classes in literature and a stint at Sciences Po, she entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (ENSBA), where she specialized in sculpture in Calka's "life model" workshop, working with clay and bronze.
His work, focused on unique bronze pieces, quickly attracted the attention of private collectors. His works are now present in France, Great Britain, Geneva, as well as in the United States, Japan and Australia.
His preferred subjects revolve around the human figure, enriched by a particular sensitivity to animal sculpture. His style is rooted in a contemporary expressionist approach. Chésade develops a "landscape" sculpture, both tactile and narrative, where the fragment reintroduces mystery and meaning into the figures. His approach also revitalizes the working of bronze through a return to the raw, primitive material and a direct wax technique that emphasizes the energy of the gesture and the finesse of detail. The whole is enhanced by subtle patinas in light and warm tones.