The Draguignan Museum of Fine Arts is hosting a new work by Camille Chastang as part of the Cultural Summer

Since August 28, the Museum of Fine Arts has included in its collection a new work by the artist Camille Chastang , invited in residence as part of the 2025 edition of Cultural Summer - Reopening the World. A national operation of the Ministry of Culture.

This ornamental wallpaper, 3 meters high and approximately 16 meters long , is the result of work carried out in several stages since July 14, as part of the first artistic residency organized at the museum since its opening.

This work of art, created in several strips, was stuck to the wall between August 16 and 23 during Camille's second visit to the museum.

A graduate in textile design and from Villa Arson (National School of Art in Nice ), she was welcomed in three stages over three weeks.

Each time, cultural mediation workshops were organized in the museum's La Fabrique social living space.

"My wish was to reveal certain details of the works exhibited in the museum rooms but not very visible and not necessarily well seen by the public. I first visited the collection to immerse myself in it and I photographed the elements that interested me," she explains.

Among all the visual treasures the collection offers, Camille explains what caught her attention: "I chose the animal and floral motifs that are usually present in my creations."

This wallpaper depicts a starry sky in a tormented blue from which emerge recurring patterns placed in medallions in the shape of Salernes tommette tiles.

These are linked together by a Louis XVI style ribbon, probably an influence of the artist's training in textile design.

Iconographic focus

Each medallion therefore contains the detail of a work from the museum noted by Camille: a toy spaniel borrowed from a painting by Jacques François Courtois (1668-1752), a rose adorning the portrait made by the painter Drouais of Marie-Joséphine Louise Bénédicte de Savoie, Countess of Provence (1753-1810), a portrait of a woman painted by Esther Huillard (1855-1928), rural or mythological scenes decorating earthenware from Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, a pair of griffins and a rooster in slip.

"In my notebooks, I reproduced the chosen elements through drawing and watercolor, then scanned them and then duplicated them to create my wallpaper. This repetition is only apparent, however; I enhanced each detail with paint applied by hand to the paper mounted on the wall," explains Camille, who works in mixed techniques, combining modern and traditional methods of the visual arts.

For Pierre Guiral, head of audiences, this first residency "is conclusive both in terms of transmission during the workshops for the public organized with the artist, and in terms of the quality of the work restored."

Moreover, even if nothing is currently planned, he specifies: "The museum could welcome an artist in residence again thanks to the same "Cultural Summer" program."