IsaSator

News

Sales, exhibitions and press. Click an image to enlarge it.

1. November 1, 2026

   Two canvases at auction on Catawiki

   Fanfan Le Harem

   Two of my canvases are up for auction on Catawiki, selected by their experts. Starting bid: 1 euro.

   Fanfan, 2007, Les Normands series, acrylic on canvas, H 47 × W 38 cm. Selected by Caroline Bokobza, a qualified French auctioneer who worked in the valuation department of Sotheby's Paris. Estimate €600 to €800, closing Thursday, November 5, 2026 at 10:45 pm (Paris time). See the Fanfan lot on Catawiki Le Harem, Les 1001 Nuits series, acrylic on canvas, H 90 × W 130 cm. Selected by Petra Skarupsky. Estimate €1,500 to €1,800, closing Wednesday, November 4, 2026 at 7:02 pm (Paris time). See the Le Harem lot on Catawiki

2. October 7, 2026

   Smart Barby on a VIP goes to auction

   

   She saw New York in 2007. Nineteen years later, my Smart Barby leaves the studio for the Blanchet & Associés sale in Paris. She is looking for her guardian.

   Seated in a champagne glass, she throws back her head, closes her eyes and lets her golden hair fall. A black poodle stands guard at her feet. All around: party, fire and glitter.

   I painted the Smart Barbies in 2007, long before the movies took hold of the doll. I took the most caricatured symbol of the feminine and made something else of it: multiple women, executive women, opera singers, high priestesses, sovereign bimbos. None of them will be put in a box.

   Smart Barby on a VIP, 2007 · acrylic on canvas, H 120 × W 60 cm, signed lower right Blanchet & Associés sale of October 14, 2026 · 97 boulevard Malesherbes, 75008 Paris Lot no. 320. The result now stands among the twenty-four auction results listed by Artprice.

3. February 5, 2026

   “Magic City”, a new canvas

   

   Couples in top hats and dresses of water dance beneath a rain of pink stripes and flashes of gold: the magic city according to Isa Sator.

4. December 17, 2025

   “Les Vierges Polaires”, solo exhibition in Nuoro, Sardinia

   From January 3 to 31, 2026, the Casa Vacanze Ortobene Arte (Via Monte Jaca 47 bis, 08100 Nuoro) hosts a solo exhibition by Isa Sator, curated by Gonaria Nevina Lai, with the participation of the Sardonia association. Opening on Saturday, January 3, 2026 at 6 pm.

   The gallery's newsletter devotes two pages to her: “a Picasso of the 21^st century, as one might well define her”, writes Vittorio E. Pisu; “a flamboyant artist, who already exhibits not only in Paris, at the Orangerie du Sénat and in other galleries, but also in New York, Miami and Tokyo, and at the moment in Russia, where she has been invited”, adds Gonaria Nevina Lai.

   The poster The newsletter, page 1 The newsletter, page 2

   Original in Italian, page 1 · page 2

   Read the newsletter in English (translated from Italian)

   Editorial by Gonaria Nevina Lai, page 1

   How could we not be pleased to open this year 2026 while looking back at 2025, which saw the creation of this space devoted to art, not only visual but also musical and literary, in a place once dedicated to the care of the body and today to that of the spirit. We have almost lost count of all the events, from the painting group show that already welcomed five French photographers to the lecture on the Tree by Ignazio Pani, already exhibited through his photographs of Clouds, which invite us to look differently not only at stratocumulus and other cumulostratus, but also at our planet, which through these images speaks to us and warns us.

   And we are truly proud to welcome to Nuoro a flamboyant artist, who already exhibits not only in Paris (at the Orangerie du Sénat and in other galleries) but also in New York, Miami, Tokyo, and at the moment in Russia, where she has been invited. The Sardonia association had persuaded her to come to Sardinia, where she finally presented, not only in Cagliari but also in Iglesias, at the Remo Branca association, two large canvases and a dozen small formats created for the occasion, in response to our proposal, which allows us to present her to you here in Nuoro.

   We are naturally grateful to all the people, emerging or well-established artists, who took part in the events we organised and who encourage us in our intention to keep offering you not only painting or photography, but also music, literature and even bonsai, thanks to Ignazio Pani. Wishing you a happy start to the new year, which we see full of artistic prospects, we look forward to seeing you at this exhibition. G. N. Lai

   “Les Vierges Polaires”, the article by Vittorio E. Pisu, pages 1 and 2

   Talking about Isa Sator's painting, as about her person, may seem easy to superficial reporters, but it is not easy at all. How, indeed, can one describe a cosmogonic painting, crackling with colour like fireworks, showing a reality that had escaped us and, above all, one that tackles the densest and least explored feminine myths, explored only superficially by some distracted macho.

   Her generous forms, her winning smile, her eyes sparkling with mischief, which weigh you up and classify you quickly, are impossible to ignore. It would have been incredible for her painting not to resemble her (although that could happen from one day to the next).

   A Picasso of the 21st century, as one might well define her, and perhaps even becoming one for real, this colourist painter never ceases to show us her explosive talent through all the solo exhibitions in which she takes part, or the group shows to which she is invited.

   But let us try to describe her painting, which at first glance shows us an aspect of reality that we, ordinary mortals and, what is more, unfortunately of the male sex, have some difficulty grasping immediately. In truth, one would need to live with Isa Sator's paintings, to be steeped in them while we sleep.

   Moreover, she depicts women here, whether the “Grandes Cocottes” (courtesans of the Belle Époque) or figures made famous by tales, such as Elf Lilla Ulilla (The Thousand and One Nights), brought to Europe by Mabrouk and Galland in two versions, including the particularly expurgated English one. Flamboyant is thy name.

   In this phantom gallery, where the portraits follow one another and are all different, the particularly telling expressions give us back the character of these young ladies: in truth strong Amazons, dominant and mistresses of their destiny, however tragic it may be.

   This is not a pale drawing-room feminism, but certainly the affirmation of the predominance of the female sex, as if she wanted to tell us: “Woman is no longer the future of man. Gentlemen, sort yourselves out.”

   There is indeed every reason to be captivated by her canvases, never sparing but vast, bursting with vitality, able to fill the space, be it a living room or an exhibition gallery. The Orangerie du Sénat in Paris could barely contain her “Grandes Cocottes”, and what about Scheherazade and her Berber friends riding through the desert? Often presented without a frame, which would almost struggle to hold them, Isa Sator's canvases are akin to the great portraits of the Renaissance courts or of the Flemish and Spanish Golden Age, which describe and acquaint us not only with the appearance and personality of the great figures of that era but also with the details of daily life; and often these depictions are full of little riddles to decipher.

   L'Œil de la Femme à Barbe, a well-known gallerist and columnist, describes her admirably: “Isa Sator has been a painter since she fell out of the cradle; she could paint before she could read and write. Having become a lawyer to ‘bury her madness beneath the garb of the impeccable, flawless woman’, she would let that figure burst apart in mid-flight! Having thus left Paris without notice for the other side of the Pacific Ocean for nearly ten years, she entered a Parisian competition from New Caledonia as the self-taught painter she had meanwhile become, and won it.”

   In 2015 Jean-Louis Poitevin, a well-known art critic, wrote of her: “Colours are in each of us like inaccessible continents. Isa Sator's power is to pass on to us, in this play between coloured ground and burning lines more coloured still, a little of that extraterrestrial DNA that runs through her veins.”

   Anyone who has had the good fortune to follow Isa Sator's work from New Caledonia to the present day will easily have noticed that over time her particularly pyrotechnic blaze is beginning to find a system that would seem less colourful and explosive, becoming denser and more mysterious.

   Her favourite themes are naturally women, especially those on the front line, like herself, as these new adventures that thrust her to the forefront clearly show. The landscapes of her paintings place her characters in a space-time that is not exactly ours, but which, with a little imagination, could become so.

   Indeed, Isa invites us to follow her, to leave our universe and enter hers: the one where the most improbable audacities are possible, and naturally those of painting. At times Isa subverts the laws of Western perspective to come closer to the Chinese way of arranging figures, precisely in an undifferentiated space, like a limbo, where thoughts, desires and dreams become possible.

   Along with her two recent large works, she offers us a dozen small formats; you can also watch a series of films describing her happenings: vimeo.com/156673880, 168433823, 191741876, 230489357, 448604484, 454817684, 491087936, 1120458813, 1114674543.

   While waiting to welcome you, and regretting the absence of the artist, currently on tour in Russia, I wish you a pleasant read. Vittorio E. Pisu

   Sidebar: the Sardonia association, page 2

   The Sardonia association, founded in 1993, has for thirty-two years been organising cultural and festive events, and more particularly art exhibitions: since 2016, the “Cagliari je t'aime” series has invited leading French women artists to exhibit at the Lazzaretto and the MEM in Cagliari; since 2021, the “Meglio una Donna” series has invited a dozen artists, Sardinian, resident in Sardinia or foreign, to exhibit in Cagliari Villanova, in Oristano (Arrubiu Art Gallery Café) and at the Remo Branca in Iglesias. With Insulae Lab, it proposed to the mayor of Berchidda, Andrea Nieddu, exhibitions of painters and photographers at the Wine Museum, hosted during the summers of 2023, 2024 and 2025 with great public and critical success.

   The association documents its events through this newsletter, through films (vimeo.com/unisvers) and through online catalogues. It is currently presenting, in a new space, a painting group show (six women and three men artists), followed by a textile art exhibition presented by two artists at the La Madusa association (Via Italia 124, Cagliari Pirri); and, at Gonaria Lai's art studio in Nuoro, a photography group show, followed by woodcuts by Paola Pruna, which is currently hosting the photographs of Ignazio Pani. Vittorio E. Pisu

   The poster

   Les Vierges Polaires. Isa Sator, curated by Gonaria Nevina Lai. From January 3 to 31, 2026. Opening on Saturday, January 3, 2026 from 6 pm. Casa Ortobene Vacanze Arte, Via Monte Jaca 47 bis, 08100 Nuoro. With the participation of the Sardonia association.