On the occasion of La mémoire du limon, hommage à Claude Monet, presented until December 23, 2026 at the Blanche Hoschedé-Monet Museum in Vernon, under the curatorship of Philippe Piguet and Nicolas Bondenet, Lionel Sabatté looks back on his artistic approach in a video made as part of the Impressions d'artistes.
A singular figure in the contemporary art scene, Lionel Sabatté develops a body of work where organic materials, recycled elements, and traces of time become the vehicles for a reflection on memory and the metamorphoses of life. His sculptures, installations, and graphic works give new life to often-neglected materials, revealing their evocative power.
With the exhibition "The Memory of Silt, a tribute to Claude Monet," the artist takes silt collected during the dredging of the water lily pond at Giverny and transforms it into a pigment. From this historically rich material, he creates a series of screen prints that establish a dialogue between the landscapes imagined by Claude Monet, archival material, and contemporary issues related to our relationship with the living world.
In this video, Lionel Sabatté revisits the genesis of this project and shares his thoughts on how materials become witnesses to time, memory, and the transformations of the world. He also discusses the symbolic significance of this silt, a remnant of the famous gardens of Giverny, which became the starting point for a creation that brings Impressionist heritage and a contemporary perspective into dialogue.
