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Cécile Raynal
Barn Owl by Cécile Raynal - Animal smoke-fired stoneware sculpture, fable, clay

2025

$9,884.37
£7,282.11
€8,280
CA$13,604.10
A$15,095.77
CHF 7,962.65
MX$184,287.14
NOK 100,743.09
SEK 94,354.05
DKK 63,027.91

About the Item

Barn Owl is a unique smoke-fired stoneware, resin, plaster and clay sculpture by French contemporary artist Cécile Raynal, dimensions are 75 × 52 × 60 cm (29.5 × 20.4 × 23.6 in). This sculpture is unique and comes with an authenticity certificate. The dimensions and weight are for the sculpture only, the wood base is 37 x 50 x 50 cm (14.5 x 19.6 x 19.6 in) and weighs 30kg. The sculpture can be sold with or without the wood base. This sculpture depicts a barn owl, a type of owl. The artist’s gestures are visible on the surface of the sculpture, creating a play of light that is further enhanced by the owl’s varied colors. With color contrasts of dark grey and ochre, the bird comes to life and draws the viewer’s attention. This work is part of the sculptural installation Chœur de bêtes (Choir of Beasts), which brings together eleven similarly sized animals encircling a cephalophorous figure. These creatures defy natural proportions and often strike surreal poses, amplifying the scene’s enigmatic atmosphere. The artist describes the installation in these words: “Hybrid beasts and creatures, peoples, mass-culture: wolf, hare, fox, raccoon, goat, donkey, crow, feline, badger, world-tree, birder. So many motifs, subjects, metaphorical presences. […] They embody other spirits, other imaginations, other ways of seeing, moving and being moved. The peoples of the beasts suffer us, deplore us—since always and everywhere, we fabulate them. They represent us, they duplicate us. […] So I model great silences between man and beast, envisaging possible alliances. The future is only possible in an alliance, a common field, an earthy and spiritual heart.” The Chœur de bêtes installation, developed over several years, was recently presented in Cécile Raynal’s solo exhibition À la table des Dames (At the Ladies’ Table) at Montivilliers Abbey in Normandy (2025). A former home to women, nuns, and abbesses, this historic site provided a resonant setting for Raynal’s exploration of feminine and animal presence. Her sculptures, intentionally raw and sometimes unsettling, resist seduction. Marked by their tactile passage through material and trial, they stand upright—vivid and alive. The exhibition offers a retrospective of the last fifteen years of Raynal’s unique career, celebrating a world where the animal, the feminine, the instinctive, and the rebellious are seen not as opposites, but as vital, generative forces. Cécile Raynal’s artistic practice moves between the solitude of her Normandy studio and immersive residencies in spaces often overlooked by society—prisons, hospitals, convents. In these environments, she creates clay portraits inspired by the people she encounters, capturing traces of their presence through intimate exchange. Back in her studio, she deepens this process by weaving in a rich tapestry of myths, folktales, and literary references. The resulting sculptures give shape to animals and hybrid beings—half-human, half-animal—through which she explores the shared language and subtle interactions between humans and beasts.
  • Creator:
    Cécile Raynal (1966, French)
  • Creation Year:
    2025
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 29.53 in (75 cm)Width: 20.48 in (52 cm)Depth: 23.63 in (60 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Paris, FR
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU803116747522

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