“Seaside,” bronze, 42 x 23 x 15 centimeters. All images © Valérie Hadida, courtesy of Galry, shared with permission
For Valérie Hadida, the deep, protective partnerships fostered between women provide the foundation for her practice. The French artist casts bronze sculptures that are poetic and nuanced, depicting female figures wearing contemplative and composed expressions. “Coming from a large family where women reign supreme and play a key role, they have established a bond of serenity, trust, and complicity with me,” she tells Colossal. “The heroines of my works are always women because I am deeply convinced that it is they who will change and save the world.”
Hadida begins with a sketch before building the figures that eventually are covered with green patina. In recent years, the size of the sculptures has grown from smaller works into those that stand more than a meter high, an expansion that brings the scale of the works closer to a human body. “I prefer to work on the curves, the flesh more than the muscles. These seem to me disabling because they are hard and violent,” she says. Most of the sculptures depict teenage years or middle age, a time that’s marked with transition and change.
Generally seated, the figures’ poses and gestures appear temporary as if the woman has just shifted or is precariously settled on a stone. Although the bodies are still, their curls often swell upward to imply movement and sometimes are embedded with smaller silhouettes like in “Nocturna.” Their locks “typify each woman in her origins, in her age… The hair moves like the branches of a tree,” the artist says, noting that the plumed strands both accentuate and stabilize the figures’ supple curves, elongated fingers, and overall shape. “These women are marked by life. I do not represent perfect or idealized figures. These silhouettes are on the contrary very marked, very cut out. But their imperfections highlight their femininity,” she says.
Hadida is represented by Galry in Paris, and you can find a larger collection of her elegantly sculpted works on Artsy.
“La grande zénitude” (2021), bronze, 39 2/5 × 31 1/2 × 13 4/5 inches
Detail of “Nocturna” (2017), bronze, 25 1/5 × 17 7/10 × 7 9/10 inches
Left: “La rêveuse” (2018), bronze, 32 7/10 × 8 3/10 × 10 1/5 inches. Right: “Nouvel Amour” (2020), bronze, 29 1/2 × 11 4/5 × 11 4/5 inches
Detail of “Trio de femmes” (2018), bronze, 21 3/10 × 15 × 7 9/10 inches
“Trio de femmes” (2018), bronze, 21 3/10 × 15 × 7 9/10 inches
“Nocturna” (2017), bronze, 25 1/5 × 17 7/10 × 7 9/10 inches
Detail of “Nouvel Amour” (2018), bronze, 75 x 30 x 30 centimeters
Detail of “Nouvel Amour” (2018), bronze, 75 x 30 x 30 centimeters