Lionel Sabatté transforms Monet's pond sediment into 'dustographies'

Artist Lionel Sabatté (b. 1975) has created a series of 'poussiérographies' (dustographies) using dried silt from Claude Monet's water lily pond at Giverny, on view at the Musée Blanche Hoschedé-Monet in Vernon from May 16 to December 23, 2026. The project, curated by Philippe Platel, director of the Normandie Impressionniste festival, marks the centenary of Monet's death. Sabatté, known for working with humble materials like dust, hair, and dead skin, collected the sediment after learning from art critic Philippe Piguet (Monet's great-grandson) that the pond was being cleaned. He screen-prints archival and recent photographs of the pond onto canvas with transparent ink, then projects the dried silt (sometimes mixed with studio dust) onto the wet surface, allowing the image to emerge within two hours. The resulting works retain organic traces like snail shells. Sabatté's studio in Noisy-le-Sec, Seine-Saint-Denis, also contains volcanic rock dust, silk fragments, pigments from Lascaux, olive branches from the winter of 1954, and metro dust. A future exhibition titled 'Ce qui reste' will open at the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature in Paris.