Nouvelle lune (New Moon) (2011) is a contemporary sculpture by French artist Soasig Chamaillard, best known for her transformative work with found religious objects—especially statuettes of the Virgin Mary—that she reimagines through a pop-cultural and surreal lens.
Created in January 2011, Nouvelle lune stands approximately 43 cm tall and is composed of recovered, unsigned statue fragments combined with plaster, resin, toy elements and acrylic paint.
Although modest in scale, the sculpture carries a strong visual and conceptual presence. It belongs to a body of work in which Chamaillard reclaims damaged devotional objects and subjects them to processes of repair, alteration and imaginative reinvention. The piece has been exhibited through Galerie Albane in France, which has represented much of the artist’s sculptural practice.
Chamaillard’s work is rooted in a strategy of appropriation and détournement. Drawing on the visual language of Catholic iconography familiar within Western European culture, she sources discarded religious figures from flea markets and donations, treating them as both cultural artefacts and raw material.
Apparitions
Rather than restoring these objects to their original devotional function, she intervenes in their form, inserting contemporary references that destabilise their traditional meaning. Nouvelle lune sits within her broader series of “apparitions”, in which the sacred is blended with elements from popular culture, fantasy and childhood imagery.
The title Nouvelle lune suggests renewal, transition and concealed potential. In lunar symbolism, the new moon marks the beginning of a cycle, a moment when the moon is present but unseen. This metaphor aligns closely with Chamaillard’s artistic approach: she gives a second life to objects that have lost their original visibility and value, transforming them into something simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar. The sculpture becomes a site of transformation, where absence, concealment and rebirth are materially enacted.
Meaning in symbols
Visually, Nouvelle lune juxtaposes the calm, recognisable posture of a traditional Madonna figure with unexpected additions that interrupt its historical serenity. The integration of toy-like or brightly coloured elements creates a tension between reverence and play, spirituality and consumer culture. This collision encourages the viewer to reconsider how meaning is constructed through symbols, and how those symbols shift as they move through time and context.
Chamaillard has often stated that her intention is not to provoke or offend religious belief, but to create works that resonate emotionally and imaginatively. Her sculptures operate as poetic hybrids rather than polemical statements. In this sense, Nouvelle lune functions as a quiet yet powerful meditation on belief, memory and visual saturation in contemporary life. By reworking sacred forms through a contemporary lens, Chamaillard reveals how icons continue to evolve, accumulating new layers of significance while retaining traces of their past.
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