{ Galerie Papillon }

Linda Sanchez

Linda Sanchez’s new exhibition at Galerie Papillon builds on the research she undertook during her residency at the Saint-Louis crystal works, whilst shifting towards more fragmentary, open and heterogeneous forms. Whereas molten crystal imposed a regime of continuous flow and rotation, the current exhibition presents a series of pieces which, without abandoning this logic of cycle and transformation, introduce discontinuities, deviations and a heightened focus on surfaces, reverse sides and the intermediate states of the material.

The installation reflects a precise consideration of the flow of the gaze and the coexistence of the works. At the back of the space, some thirty crystal spinning tops (Les Bousillés, 2025) bear witness to this long residency in Saint-Louis, where the artist worked on these forms that ‘crystallise’ movement, unstable equilibrium, the effect of repetition and risk-taking. Is a crystal spinning top not, by its very nature, a paradoxical object, its rotation constantly teetering on the brink of a possible fall? But for Linda, fragility and the “breakable” always become defining elements of the work—whether real or potential—just as much as the refractions of light and the waves projected onto the floor when the objects are set in motion. Here, motionless, they interact with a video projection that sets them in motion, revealing the richness of their kinetic effects.

Other series are organised around this major body of work, such as the ceramic tiles (Tiles tales, 2026), which mark a new phase in the artist’s thinking. By focusing not on their visible surface but on their reverse side, Linda Sanchez reveals the patterns, logos and moulds usually hidden within these mass-produced tiles. Her process involves coating and then sanding the back to bring out their latent structure, producing patterns that are both abstract and deeply rooted in industrial history. Hung without any concealing devices, the tiles embrace their status as found objects, subsequently transformed by simple gestures. Their presentation highlights a tension between serial repetition and accidental singularity—a sort of flip side to craftsmanship—linking Linda Sanchez’s work to a minimalist and process-oriented sensibility, which might also evoke Donald Judd’s modular structures and, more broadly, the history of radical abstraction.

On this same medium, she also continues the series Coup sur coup, where the logic of the crack disrupts that of the grid, in plays of symmetry and formal correspondences produced solely by gestures whose delicate violence demands extreme precision.

This focus on weathered surfaces is explored further in several series involving sandblasting, re-firing or coating. The Martyrs, created from slabs marked by ancient inscriptions or graffiti, explore the possibility of translating these traces into ceramic or stone. A marble piece, whose surface has been treated by sandblasting, bears witness to this quest for a delicacy that mechanical engraving would not allow. Similarly, the sandblasted mirrors produce ‘dust drawings’: using a sandblaster, corundum and silicone masks, the artist creates ambiguous surfaces, oscillating between soiling and revelation, between erasure and inscription, within the very ‘flesh’ of the material.

Another set of works, entitled Neige, is based on a process the artist describes as a “deposition” of plaster. Sprinkled onto damp surfaces in successive layers, the material crystallises in real time, generating graceful, almost cloud-like forms. The use of a more resistant synthetic plaster helps to stabilise these self-formed structures, which settle upon supports salvaged by the artist, such as twisted steel and construction site relics, the result of far more brutal gestures and movements. These pieces, almost discreet, reflect a desire to preserve a certain quality of silence, like that which settles in after a night of snow showers...

This economy of means is also evident in a lighting installation. A simple split bamboo stalk (Jour, 2025) produces an intense light that seems to emanate from the material itself. The care taken to conceal technical elements reflects a constant concern for Linda Sanchez: maintaining a form of visual clarity, where each project follows a formal logic, a process of gestures that creates an aesthetic of ‘deduction’. This reversal is essential: gestures are stripped down to retain only the essential, and the dialogue with the material is carried out without compromise. Nothing is unnecessarily complicated: the ingredients are right before our eyes, plain to see. Linda Sanchez is a sincere architect.

The exhibition also makes room for experiments still in progress, such as a digitally stretched photograph of a palm tree, where the grid becomes denser until it creates an ambiguity between error and intentional gesture. These openings bear witness to a work in progress, attentive to the resonances between image and sculpture, a possibility of making different modes of expression coexist.

Rotations, deposits, transparencies, opacities, controls, accidents... Linda Sanchez pursues a research that engages both technical skills and the ways in which we pay attention to them. Each piece is an element of vocabulary, a key to interpreting the visual grammar that the artist continually expands, to impose new sensations upon the world.

Gaël Charbau