Transfiguring matter, she chisels her leaves like precious metal, to create bas-reliefs and light fixtures inspired by nature.
Even as a child, Anne-Charlotte Saliba loved creating origami and paper art. Her studies in interior architecture and environmental design, through the creation of models, gave her a glimpse of the possibilities offered by this material, which she then sought to master by developing her own expertise. Fascinated by the paper lace adorning old religious images—the canivets—she has, through embossing, perforation, stippling, and cutting techniques, conducted her own explorations of the material, which she enjoys pushing to its limits. As fragile as it is resilient, paper presents her with challenges that she loves to confront by playing with its boundaries. Her experiments, which began in 2011, led her to win the Young Talent in Craftsmanship Award in 2020, presented by Ateliers d'Art de France. Since then, creations, commissions, and collaborations have followed in quick succession.
In her studio nestled in a natural haven, Anne-Charlotte Saliba lets her inspiration wander, from cells to abyssal creatures and invertebrates, from minerals to plants. "I work using automatic writing, which allows me to surrender to the unknown," she explains. While the organic inspiration is evident in her Boa series of lamps, whose lines of paper feathers sewn onto tulle follow the movement dictated by the hand, geometry makes an appearance in the double-sided Pilea lamps . These combine a single, mathematical fold with sharp edges and clean lines with a perforation technique that distorts the material. Particularly appreciating the purity of white, which highlights shadows, the artist likes to pair it with brass, which lends it a shine and a touch of elegance, as illustrated by her Ariane pendant lamp. Sometimes tinting her paper with a golden watercolor ink, which gives it an amber glow, she began to use colored papers and is moving towards exploring color gradients with ink.
Creating her own embossing dies, using a scalpel for her scales, and repurposing tools to deform paper, this visual artist enjoys layering different techniques. Since her collaboration with Courvoisier in 2023, for which she created a floral diptych, her work has evolved : “I don’t just work within the thickness of the sheet, but I add cut paper elements to my scales to layer the planes and accentuate the effect of transparency. I’m increasingly exploring the idea of volume.” Open to challenges, she hopes to expand her range of lighting fixtures using new techniques, promising us new poetic discoveries.
Revelations Biennale – Collective stand at Galerie Éric Hennebert
Grand Palais
7, avenue Winston-Churchill, Paris, 8e
From 21 to 25 May 2025
LAB
Rodolfo Ferrari Foundation
Via Biella 6, Milan (Italy)
From 6 to 11 April, 2025
