The two pieces of the recognized French Sculptor Laurence Bonnel narrates a story of a couple. “Départ” depicts a couple saying their farewells as they part ways. “Le Retour” on the other hand, recounts the moment of rejoice, when they finally become one. Full of emotions, these romantic pieces reveal that strong sentiment shared between one another. This series touches us with its elegance and softness, and pays tribute to the universal symbol of love.

Born 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 Swiss sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti, or the Cubist bodies of French-Jewish sculptor Ossip 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.”