Les Miresses 1

Les Miresses 1 – Anne Guerrin’s Stoneware Tribute to the Healers of Old

With Les Miresses 1, Anne Guerrin continues her sensitive exploration of female figures who embody memory, intuition, and ancestral knowledge. The title itself is deeply evocative: the old French word “miresse” once referred to women who saw beyond appearances—healers, midwives, visionaries capable of intuitively understanding both body and spirit. This symbolic heritage illuminates the sculpture, whose closed eyes express not blindness but an inner form of perception.

Crafted in stoneware, the piece emanates a mineral, almost sacred presence. The material reveals subtle variations of grey and ochre, as though the artist had allowed the earth’s natural history to surface. Anne Guerrin plays with the rawness of fired clay, its textures, its stabilized cracks held discreetly by metal ties. Far from flaws, these marks evoke the depth of lived experience—life’s scars, the passage of time, and the delicate link between inner landscapes and the physical world.

The miresse’s face, gently lifted upward, radiates serene intensity. Her closed eyelids convey neither retreat nor rest, but heightened awareness—the kind possessed by women who do not need their eyes to understand. The slightly pursed lips suggest restraint, secrecy, the quiet wisdom of those who share knowledge sparingly. This meditative posture places the sculpture between the visible and the invisible, as if it were attuned to an immaterial breath.

Around her neck, the necklace made of rounded stoneware elements reinforces the ritual dimension. It may be a talisman, a ceremonial adornment, or a mark of belonging to ancient healing traditions. Each bead resembles a fragment of lunar stone, a memory pebble, a silent witness to ancestral gestures.

The lower part of the bust, elongated and covered with pale vertical streaks, evokes a robe of earth weathered by time. Once again, Anne Guerrin references the idea of an inner landscape—a body becoming script, surface, memory made material. This subtle interplay of volume and texture establishes a balance between strength and vulnerability, density and elevation.

Les Miresses 1 is not merely a sculpture: it is a presence. A guardian figure, almost shamanic, inviting the viewer to slow down, listen, and feel. It finds its natural place in a contemporary or minimalist interior, where it acts as a visual and spiritual anchor point. For collectors or lovers of unique, expressive works, this stoneware piece is an ideal acquisition—an artwork that carries depth, narrative, and soul.

Available for purchase online, Anne Guerrin’s Les Miresses 1 speaks to those who seek not only an art object but also a memory, a presence, a silent story that continues to resonate long after the gaze moves on.