Matignon, Paris
Sarah Buckner
Chambre de la Vie Parallèle
Esther SchipperEsther Schipper, Paris is pleased to present Chambre de la vie parallèle, Sarah Buckner's second solo exhibition with the gallery and her first in our Paris location. On view are new paintings and drawings. Following Buckner's 2024 solo exhibition at Longlati Foundation in Shanghai, from which unseen preparatory drawings are on view in Paris, the current selection of works on paper and paintings marks a new starting point for the artist: a space of beginnings, clarity, and potential transformation, even catharsis. Color plays a central role in these works, with tones of red, pink, and ochre evoking the vitality of the human body. Stains and layered textures give the works a tactile, organic quality, blurring the line between dream and reality. There's a spontaneity in these marks, a sense of letting the materials guide the outcome while retaining a focus on essential truths. Hands, central to the creative process, leave traces on the paper—stains of color that suggest skin and blood, feeling raw yet deliberate. These intimate marks reflect the immediacy of a moment, shaped by chance but also evoking the fugue-like quality of desire. The choice of format—many works in the exhibition are small oil or ink sketches on paper—emphasizes a personal, even intimate engagement with its subjects. Chambre de la vie parallèle is inspired by the exhibition space's mirror as a symbol of the porosity of reality and dream worlds, and, as the title suggests, of a portal to parallel states of being. Recalling the travels of Alice from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass into the realm of fantasy, Buckner's protagonists appear to occupy similarly enchanted cosmos.