For her first exhibition at Backslash, the French multidisciplinary artist Frédérique Lucien presents a group of previously unseen works that extend a line of research she has pursued since the 1980s, notably during her collaboration with the Galerie Jean Fournier. Remaining faithful to her exploration of vegetal, mineral, and living realms, she weaves a sensitive continuum in which forms, materials, and rhythms engage in dialogue, as though they were manifestations of a single breath. The exhibition unfolds through ensembles of ceramics, pastels, and cut papers, forming a true abecedarium of her personal iconography. Each work appears as a letter, fragmentary yet essential, within a singular visual vocabulary patiently developed over time. By exploring new series, materials, and motifs, Frédérique Lucien continually renews her gesture while bringing forth a body of work that is immediately recognizable, as if each form, despite its novelty, retained the memory of a language already present.

Conceived as an autonomous form, the exhibition invents its own scenography and a path animated by both the gaze and the step, offering visitors the experience of a world to wander through, much like an English garden where order and the unexpected, rigour and freedom, together shape the artist’s universe. The exhibition highlights the coherence of a body of work that, for more than forty years, has consistently explored the relationships between observation, the memory of forms, and formal invention.

Since the late 1980s, Frédérique Lucien has developed a subtle and protean body of work, nourished by meticulous observation of the vegetal, the mineral, the organic, and the human body. Through repetition and variation, her multidisciplinary practice is anchored in the gesture of line and form. In this way, she constructs a unique oeuvre in which the motif becomes a pretext for formal exploration, far removed from imitation. These botanical or anatomical fragments take shape in a troubling in-between: through charcoal drawing, metal cut-outs, ceramics, or screen printing on glass, she explores the tensions between void and fullness, opacity and transparency, surface and depth. In Lucien’s work, observation becomes language. Delicate and precise, her practice dissects life in order to reveal her poetic vision of the world.