Nympheus Luminansis, the Danse of Light

This large-format work was a real challenge for me. I had to learn a new way of painting and master color. This first painting, which depicts the water lilies in Claude Monet's garden, took four years to complete and required 1,000 hours of work.

This painting marks the starting point of the series: Nympheus Luminansis, the Water Lilies of Light. It lays the foundations for the artistic project, which will subsequently include a dozen large-format works. The artist chose to begin with this work because it accurately reflected her state of mind at the time of its creation. Her partner had just learned that he had Charcot's disease, an incurable neurological disease. In this difficult context, painting became an act of resistance in the face of inner turmoil and a way to give shape to the “crazy waltz” of emotions she was feeling: shock, pain, but also a desire to resist the inevitable.
It took four years to complete this painting. Two years were devoted to accompanying and supporting her partner until the end, then another two years, during which painting allowed her to continue her personal reflection on life.
In terms of its composition, the work is divided into two parts: a light side and a darker side, which are distinct yet connected by the common thread of water lilies. The water lilies bathed in light enter the dark side, and the water lilies in the shade invite themselves into the light side. Through this painting, the artist seeks to transcend her intimate experience and give it universal significance. Light, the central motif of the entire series, becomes a metaphor for hope and the force of life in the face of the shadows and darkness of existence. The choice of colors, contrasts, and visual rhythm conveys the mixture of fragility and power that characterizes the work.
This canvas is not only the first chronologically: it is the matrix of the entire Nympheus Luminansis project. It establishes the common thread of the series, in which each work explores a state of mind, a relationship with light and nature, in a constant dialogue between interiority and landscape.
With this inaugural painting, Laurence Saunois has transformed a personal ordeal into the starting point for an ambitious artistic adventure. By sublimating the intimate through painting, she invites the viewer to share a path where light always seeks to overcome darkness.