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Bio
Sophie Balkanski is a visual artist, born in 1995. She lives and works in the Vexin region of France. Trained at ENSATT (École Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Techniques du Théâtre) in Lyon, she develops a practice at the intersection of painting, textiles and scenography. Working with fragments that she cuts, assembles, paints and sews, she gradually shifts the painted surface towards the object and space.
Following her training, she worked as a scenographer with Tatiana Frolova, Marianne Clévy and Lisa Brüning. In 2021, she developed Tendre Détente with Louise Bentkowski, supported by the Créations en cours programme of Ateliers Médicis and by La Métive.
Her work has recently been presented in several solo exhibitions: Premières Fois at Prieuré Saint-Niçaise in Gasny in 2025, followed by Revoir at Le Tzara in Paris and Champs Ouverts at Château de Bizy in Vernon in 2026.
Statement
I work with fragments: fragments of paintings, fabrics, traces and sensations. They come from a history marked by dispersion. I assemble them, stitch them back together and transform them, giving them a sense of containment, making what has come apart hold together again.
My landscapes — mountains and caves — are painted in oil on large-scale canvases that physically engage the body. They are spaces shaped by memory, displacement and time, but also, for me, stable and protective forms. I construct them through layers, fragments and tensions of colour, like images we try to hold onto as they are already beginning to change.
Gradually, painting left the canvas and gave rise to the series Corps réassemblés. I cut into painted surfaces, stitch them back together and assemble them differently. They become soft or sculptural forms, suspended from the ceiling and casting their shadows into space. Textile allows me to work with folding, volume and movement.
This research also extends into a collective practice. Natural dyeing and patchwork transform fragments of fabric into large textile landscapes created collaboratively. With Tendre Détente, textile assemblages become architecture: suspended sheets and canvases shift the way bodies move through space, creating passages, shelters and temporary divisions.
