Laurence Jenkell, also known as JENK, is a self-taught French contemporary sculptor and painter, internationally renowned for her Wrapping Bonbon sculptures.

She was born in December 1965 and lives and works on the French Riviera.

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She began her artistic research in the mid-1990s, experimenting with various techniques that enabled her to master plexiglass and develop her twisting technique. Twisting, or wrapping, literally consists of winding the material around itself, combined with the twist of a candy wrapper. Thanks to this technique, she created the Bonbon sculpture that brought her fame and has since become her artistic signature.

 

For nearly 20 years, JENKELL has been sculpting brightly colored candies using materials such as bronze, plexiglass, aluminum, marble, polyester, and Murano glass.

Twisting takes on its full meaning in her work, which is rooted in a broader reflection and cultural process: the Bonbon as a subject that combines simplicity and universality. With great freedom and determination, Laurence Jenkell continues her research and experimentation around twisting, developing new collections that enrich her repertoire of forms.

 

Indulgence is not a bad thing!

 

Laurence Jenkell has always loved sweets. Deprived of them during her childhood, she developed a true obsession with this symbol of childhood and sweetness.

For this reason, over 20 years ago she decided to elevate the Bonbon into a true work of art.

Through trial and error in her early experiments, Laurence Jenkell succeeded in mastering the material to create the Bonbon sculpture that has fascinated her for many years.

Through twisting, she expresses her anxieties and breaks free from the past by metaphorically twisting its neck. More than a medium, the Bonbon as interpreted by Laurence Jenkell has become a universal language that brings us back to our childhood—an ode to the past and to indulgence.

 

A sculptor naturally maintains a special relationship with material: adding to it if modeling, at the very least translating it if casting, or removing it if carving, in order to reveal the form. Rarely does one master all of these approaches.

 

Laurence Jenkell discovered these processes as a self-taught artist. With her, the artist’s “kitchen” was to be taken literally: it was in a domestic oven that she experimented with her first inclusions, drips, firing, and molding. After several years of research and experimentation, she achieved perfect control over the softening and shaping of plexiglass. With wrapping—this almost cosmic twisting of material—she brought it to a level of formal perfection that opened up an infinite range of creative possibilities.

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To read on our blog:

-Laurence Jenkell's wrapping candies in Saudi Arabia

-Laurence Jenkell's wrapping bonbons sculptures