ART EDITION : LAURENCE BONNEL
Born in 1976 in Paris, Laurence Bonnel discovered the art of sculpture in 1998, after her Art History and literature courses that revolved around the figure of the artist.
The human figure plays a key role in the works of Laurence Bonnel. She creates in particular, architectural silhouettes, almost primitive, which emanates a grand presence. The motif of the human, that of couples and that of the crowd, is recurrent and central in her imagination, and is purified with the formal stylization that immediately evokes the art of Giacometti, or the Cubist bodies of Zadkine. “Silhouettes without sight, yet expressive Like the difficult experience of questioning oneself”.
The Silhouettes express in themselves, their narrative form. They find their transmission through the inner and subjective experience of the spectator. The process of identification takes place: the more one observes the Silhouette, the more one gets into introspection.
“For me, the crystal remains a magical and mysterious matter. During the visit to the Daum workshops, I realized that the work is quite similar to that of the bronze foundry, even though the material is quite the opposite: fragile and unpredictable. Each sculpture, however reproducible, takes life differently, and becomes unique. Thanks to the know- how of Daum, the crystal gives a new meaning, a particular emotion, to my work.”
Her works have been presented in private collections in France, Geneva, Gstaad, Rome, Milan, Madrid, Barcelona, London and New York. She has realised an installation of an astonishing 30 meters long in a private property, and has installed 9 Silhouettes in the lobby of the Hotel de Paris at Saint Tropez. In 2015, Laurence Bonnel created 2 monumental works in Singapore: “Les Sentinelles” was composed of 9 Silhouettes in bronze, and “Muses” was made up of 7 Silhouettes in aluminium.
Laurence Bonnel is currently the Artistic Director of her own gallery that presents exceptional furniture of art. The works exposed illustrate the know-how of great French artisans associated with the creativity of renowned or emerging artists.