Née le 12 février 1969 à Pézenas, France.
Formation à l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Paris.
"Our ties go back to childhood. Nurtured by our shared family history, bathed in the sun and colours of the Midi, Sandra and I had every reason to be close. The years reinforced our relationship, often expressed in bursts of laughter and our affectionate calling for each other: “My cousin”. As children, our get togethers were full of real or make-believe stories as well as our dreams. Early on, Sandra showed a rare gift for creativity. From building exquisite doll houses to choreographing ballads that she improvised on her guitar to entertain the guinea pigs, everything fed her abundant imagination. I remember her first naive paintings of fruit and vegetable still lifes, of glorious blooming flowers, and of people strolling in bucolic settings. Nature already fascinated Sandra,
who couldn’t help but use a riot of colour in her work.
She brought her artistic expression and bold palette of colours to Paris, but southern France called to her. She had to get back to “the ochre land of home”, as she liked to call it. Returning enabled a renewal of her creativity and freed her passionate spirit. I followed the stages of her pictural development with great enthusiasm.
Sandra eventually came to Shanghai and had her first exhibit here, “Dream of China”, the dream that had become real. Riding the wave of this success, she let herself become immersed in this still-foreign world. She experienced losing her way in swirling crowds, the dizziness of skyscrapers, the lilongs with their aging, brittle walls, and then manhole covers, with their interlinked images. It was a revelation.
Sandra dove into the study of these surfaces as if they were an unknown language. In ancient times the Chinese interpreted the cracks in tortoise shells. In her way she discovered another language, that of painting that formed curves mixed with rust and dust, Chinese characters in relief on the manhole covers, subtle graphics that appeared rough or polished by time. Carefully printed on rice paper, selected prints were applied to canvases already covered in layers of paint and collages, then torn away. Further layers of paint and collages gradually overtook the original subject. Thus among other works she created “Dédales”, “Lilongs”, and “Théâtre de rue”, along with “Gugong” following a trip to Beijing. I could not help but be moved by the power of the beauty that glowed from every work of art. Even she sometimes discovered a shape she’d created that she then sought to develop as she squinted before her canvas.
Sandra, today I see your radiant paintings as individual maps done in your hand. In the colours, the impressions of superimposed manhole covers–frayed or filigreed, round, square or rectangular–are like windows or doors you opened and were intent on exploring further. Your plan was to “paint bigger,” “refine,” go “beyond”...
Beyond that last door, Sandra, what have you found?"
Anne-Cécile
Shanghai 2011
