Sylvain Barberot - Marie Madeleine

22-carat gold leaf on a bust cast, synthetic hair saturated with Chanel No. 5.

In Marie Madeleine, the artist presents a fragment of the body suspended between presence and disappearance. Realized from the cast of her own bust, the work unfolds like a mural apparition: a golden face turned toward the sky, almost swallowed by a mass of red hair that cascades to the floor.

The gold leaf covers the surface of the cast and gives the figure an iconic dimension. Gold, a traditional material of the sacred and of the representation of saints, transforms this autobiographical fragment into a contemporary relic. Yet the face remains partially obscured. What is visible is not the identity but its erasure, absorbed by the hair which becomes sculptural matter in its own right.

The reference to Mary Magdalene asserts itself through this historical and symbolic attribute. In Western iconography, the saint is often depicted with her long hair, an ambiguous sign of sensuality, penance, and devotion. Here, the synthetic, artificial, and excessive hair shifts this tradition into the realm of contemporary culture, where constructions of femininity oscillate between authenticity and fabrication.

The work is also permeated by an olfactory dimension. The hair is impregnated with Chanel No. 5, the mythical perfume whose cultural aura evokes luxury, desire, and memory. Invisible yet persistent, this scented presence extends the sculpture beyond sight and engages the viewer’s body in a sensory experience. The fragrance acts as a trace, a survival, an embodied memory that haunts the exhibition space.

Between relic, self-portrait, and mythified figure, Marie Madeleine questions the mechanisms of sacralization of the female body. The work simultaneously calls upon religious vocabulary, luxury codes, and signs of seduction to construct a paradoxical presence: at once monumental and fragile, intimate and inaccessible.