Sophie Chau-Banh
Bodies and landscapes in dissolution
Information
Based in
Paris, France
Status
Avanvue selection
Medium
Oil painting
Overview
Sophie Chau-Banh paints landscapes in oil that are also bodies, or bodies that are also landscapes. The boundary between figure and matter is deliberately erased: a hip extends into a rocky outcrop, a wave closes in on a back, a head of hair merges with a mineral branching. Nothing is settled, everything is in the process of becoming something else.
Her palette shifts between deep blues, dark greens, and turquoise sea spray, punctuated by flashes of orange, red, or gold that cut across the canvas like a contained warmth. The gesture is fluid, the matter worked in layers and rubbings that evoke erosion as much as skin. Having come from fashion, where she worked for years as a stylist, Sophie Chau-Banh has only recently begun painting full time, a practice she herself describes as an existential need more than a choice, rediscovered after years of restraint.
My view
I chose her in July 2026.
In Sophie Chau-Banh's work, almost nothing is sharp: water, rock, the body merge into a single matter without fixed boundaries. The body is never shown, it is dissolved into the landscape, but always findable in the grain of the matter. The titles, Mélancolie, Mute, Shelter, La mère, say states more than scenes, carried by a palette of deep blues run through with red and orange. She has only recently taken up painting, and you can feel it in the restrained urgency of the gesture. I went to see her in her studio, in a Franciscan convent. We didn't just talk about painting. She has since moved.
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