Laurence JENKELL's wrapping candies in Saudi Arabia
- Delphine & Romain Class
- Jan 2
- 5 min read
The exhibition of Laurence Jenkell at La Petite Maison Riyadh, a French restaurant in Saudi Arabia, forms part of a unique approach in which contemporary art occupies a living and social space, far from traditional museum settings. By installing her iconic Bonbon sculptures at the heart of this emblematic French restaurant, the artist offers an aesthetic experience integrated into everyday life, where the artwork interacts with the architecture, lighting, and the gestures of the table. The Plexiglas candies, with their transparency and vibrant colours, capture the energy of the space and become points of visual pause, inviting visitors to slow down, observe, and interpret.
The works on display were selected to resonate directly with the identity of La Petite Maison. Wrapping Bonbon Tomates pays tribute to the restaurant’s signature ingredient, a symbol of Mediterranean generosity, while Wrapping Bonbon Citrons evokes freshness, light, and the establishment’s Niçoise roots. Through this interplay of correspondences, Laurence Jenkell creates a subtle bridge between art and gastronomy, where colour, form, and material reflect flavours, textures, and culinary emotions. The bonbon thus becomes a fully sensory object—visual, symbolic, and emotional.
Beyond the playful and immediately appealing nature of her sculptures, the exhibition reveals the conceptual depth of Jenkell’s work. The twist (wrapping), central to each piece, embodies a contained tension: that of desire, anticipation, and confinement. Presented within the refined context of La Petite Maison Riyadh, these works acquire a new dimension, highlighting the contrast between pleasure and restraint, abundance and constraint—a duality that resonates particularly within a space dedicated to the art of living. The meticulously crafted Plexiglas transparency acts as a revealer of light, transforming each sculpture according to the time of day and the viewer’s perspective.
This exhibition also takes place at a pivotal moment in Riyadh’s cultural opening, as the Saudi capital asserts its ambition to become an international hub for contemporary creation. By hosting a French artist whose work is recognised worldwide, La Petite Maison Riyadh contributes to this dynamic and strengthens intercultural dialogue. The permanent installation of the works underscores this commitment to durability and rootedness, making art an integral part of the venue’s identity.
Thus, Laurence Jenkell’s exhibition at La Petite Maison Riyadh goes beyond mere decorative display to become an immersive experience, where art, gastronomy, and culture converge in a single movement. The Wrapping Bonbon sculptures, both joyful and deeply meaningful, embody this meeting between the visible and the invisible, immediate pleasure and intimate reflection, offering the public a sensitive and contemporary reading of French art on the international stage.
The concept of the bonbon was not initially intended as a marketing idea; it stems from a very personal memory of the artist. As a child, Laurence Jenkell was frustrated by her inability to easily unwrap bonbon wrappers. This seemingly impossible twist later became an obsession and quickly the core of her work: a metaphor for human, social, and emotional blockages.
Laurence Jenkell did not follow a traditional academic path in sculpture. She spent many years working in communication and design before daring to establish herself as an artist. This freedom explains why she chose to focus on a subject that many initially considered too simple or unoriginal—yet no one had successfully explored it technically, particularly the twist (wrapping) of the bonbon’s packaging. Jenkell began experimenting with the bonbon form in the mid-1990s.
A Technique Behind the Success
Laurence Jenkell developed the technique for her twisted Plexiglas bonbons through extensive empirical experimentation, outside traditional academic channels. Starting from an intuition linked to the twisting gesture—born from the difficulty of unwrapping a bonbon—she confronted the physical constraints of PMMA (Plexiglas): a rigid material when cold, sensitive to heat and internal stress. Through successive trials, she learned to control very precise heating ranges, to act within extremely short timeframes, and above all, to calibrate the twist to achieve a frozen movement without causing whitening or cracking of the material. This phase required numerous failures, multiple lost pieces, and a gradual understanding of how the material behaves under stress.
Gradually, she developed a unique, hybrid expertise at the intersection of fine craftsmanship and plastic engineering: controlled twisting, shape retention, slow re-heating to release tensions, followed by meticulous finishing work—particularly polishing to achieve perfect transparency. The wrapping technique thus evolved into a personal language, inseparable from the meaning of the work: the twist is not merely a formal effect, but the result of a mastered struggle with the material, visually expressing the concepts of confinement, tension, and contained desire at the heart of Laurence Jenkell’s work. Made by hand and deformed differently each time, every artwork is unique.
Behind the pop aesthetic, she emphasises the notion of confinement: the bonbon is wrapped, protected, yet constrained. She uses it as a symbol of modern human condition, caught between desire, societal norms, and pressure.
A technical anecdote of interest: she experimented for a long time with different materials—Plexiglas, aluminium, resin, Murano glass—before mastering twisted bronze, extremely complex to cast without losing the sense of movement.
Laurence Jenkell’s works have achieved remarkable results at auction, reflecting both the solidity and international recognition of her standing in the contemporary art and pop art markets. Some of her iconic Wrapping Bonbon sculptures, realised in Plexiglas, bronze, polished mirror aluminium, or marble, have been sold at major international auction houses such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s, often exceeding their estimates. A particularly notable result was recorded in New York, where a monumental polished mirror aluminium sculpture sold for over $300,000, setting a record for the artist. These sales confirm the sustained interest of collectors in unique or large-scale pieces and firmly establish Laurence Jenkell among the most prominent contemporary French artists on the secondary market.
Among her many international appearances, Laurence Jenkell has made a significant mark on the New York art scene with monumental installations of her famous Wrapping Bonbon sculptures, transforming iconic urban spaces into open-air art galleries. In 2018, her series “Candy Nations” took over the Garment District along Broadway, featuring around twenty giant candy sculptures, each coloured to represent a G20 country, celebrating both cultural unity and global diversity in the beating heart of Manhattan.
At the same time, another major installation, “Crossroads of the World”, was presented at the Port Authority Bus Terminal—the largest bus terminal in the world—offering tens of thousands of daily commuters a vibrant artistic experience within their everyday routine. This New York exhibition not only amplified Jenkell’s international visibility but also highlighted her ability to integrate contemporary art into highly frequented public spaces, transforming ordinary journeys into moments of discovery and wonder.
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