Milène Sanchez, born in 1997 in Montbéliard, France, graduated from the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (under Franz Ackermann) and the School of Art and Design of Saint-Etienne. She currently lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.
Worthiness has no place in the accumulation of years, as demonstrated by Milène Sanchez's life journey. She cultivated her earliest vision by gazing at flowers in a small town far from the metropolis in eastern France. The town was somewhat gloomy, yet illuminated by her grandmother's love. Her grandmother was the pillar of her turbulent childhood, and the flowers in her grandmother's garden brought light to her youth. They observe the growth of the flowers together every day. As she grew up, museums remained distant from Milène, yet this garden became the first museum in her life. Her early encounters with the boundless possibilities of color, the evolution of life, the bloom and withering, the appearing and disappearing-these early wonders formed the wellspring of her artistic aspirations.
Her floral works engage viewers with their rich, vibrant hues and the hazy floral blooms set against shadowy backgrounds. Sanchez 's choice of subjects and her depiction of light follow in the tradition of other painters like Frédéric Bazille, Gerhard Richter, and Carol Bensaken, all captivated by transience. Sanchez gathers images from films and photographs, whether flowers or portraits, engaging them in dialogue within her tranquil studio. "I strive to capture the tremor of energy," she writes, emphasizing that in her art, vibration matters more than outline, and atmosphere more than narrative. Like many painters of her generation, the distinctions inherited from the 20th century feel obsolete to her, and therefore thinking in terms of abstraction versus figuration is almost meaningless. Milena Sanchez chooses to express the immediacy of the moment.
After graduating from the School of Art and Design of Saint-Etienne in 2021, Milena Sanchez held her first solo exhibition at the Claire Gastaud Gallery the following year. She followed this with a second solo exhibition at the same gallery in 2023. In 2024, she was featured as a solo artist in the "Discovery" section of Art Brussels. Over the past three years, her work has been included in major group exhibitions at several French museums, and has also been exhibited across the globe in Belgium, Shanghai, etc.
Milène Artist Interview
Q: To begin, could you briefly introduce the main theme or focus of your current residency at Leo Gallery Shanghai, and share the primary inspirations and ideas guiding your work during this period?
Milène：Prior to this residency, I tried to set everything up to be able to paint as if I were in my own studio. That is to say, I followed my usual process: I came with some images to paint (around 200), personal images or screenshots from films. As I habitually do in Brussels, I looked at these images every day to contemplate my next painting; the themes don't change. I envisioned a body of about twenty canvases, both small and large formats. The idea remained the same: to paint flowers, silhouettes, faces, depending on my desire and the present moment. I never draw beforehand, so I never know what the painting will look like. I think surprise is the most important thing in my work, and above all, to surprise myself. Each painting is like a new experiment that will depend on the day's mood and will bear witness to a time suspended in the studio.
Q: Your artistic style is highly distinctive, often characterized by a hazy, ephemeral poetry. How would you describe your artistic style and core creative approach to an audience unfamiliar with your work?
Milène：Using turpentine as a medium, I work by superimposing thin layers, of different tones, to achieve an atmosphere. I love playing with transparencies, allowing the skeleton of the canvas to show through. I never really learned to paint, but it was in museums, by looking closely at the edges of paintings, that I understood painting is a matter of layering-for instance, beneath the visible green on the canvas, one realizes there is yellow underneath. Then, I find a balance between the areas that are lightly passed over and the areas that are worked in detail, that is to say, between the moments where I lose myself (blurred zones) and the moments where I regain control (sharp zones). It's like a dance between flow and dryness, between the canvas and me.
Q: You begin each studio day with silent sitting. How did this habit form, and what does it bring to your day of creation?
Milène：Indeed, I am constantly thinking. In daily life, I rarely feel connected to the real; there's always a part of me that is reflecting. But when I paint, and when I am active in the studio, I then regain control over my thoughts, and it's the only moment where I feel the most grounded in reality. Painting doesn't help me escape; it allows me to regain control and to be in a state of lucidity and intense concentration. My gaze sharpens my thought and allows me to understand certain things. One could see this as meditation, but I am much more connected to the real when I paint than when I don't.
Q: "Transience" is central to your work. For you, is painting an attempt to "hold onto" the ungraspable moment, or rather the opposite-a way to make peace with, and even celebrate, this inherent ungraspability?
Milène：Yes, it is an attempt to hold onto an ungraspable instant. As I said, I place great importance on the creative process and thus on the time in the studio. When I paint, it's quite rapid, and I would like my canvases to be the abstract testimony of a time suspended in the studio, where I am both actor and spectator of my own painting. The idea is to capture something that I am incapable of saying or seeing. Although I use images to produce a painting, it's not about showing what I see, but rather what I do not see at first. Something that would be impossible to say or to see. I attach great importance to the epiphanic moment in the creative process. When the image appears, when one holds it.
《无题》Untitled
2025
亚麻布面油画 Oil on Linen
205 x 165 cm
Q: In your portrait works, the blurred facial features create a unique atmosphere. How do you determine the degree of blurriness a particular portrait requires?
Milène：The image is a starting point, and for portraits as for flowers, I try to treat each subject in the same way. What I love about flowers is also, and above all, that they allow me to shift into abstraction, which is much more complicated with faces. Besides, blurring a face doesn't necessarily mean making it out-of-focus; I prefer to suggest rather than to demonstrate. I don't like it when narrative takes over the painting; I prefer when the painting speaks for itself. That is why I try to distance myself from figuration, or to say as little as possible, in order to intrigue and to question.
Q: You've mentioned that "once a work is finished, I stop and won't rework it, because revisiting it would destroy the moment preserved during creation." How do you know when a painting is truly finished?
Milène：In painting, the work in progress evolves, takes other directions, sometimes escapes me. When I paint, I come into contact with the real (the material, the color) and thus I enter into a dialogue with my object; I lose control and I regain it; it's a constant game. So, I don't know when a painting is finished, but I know when I have gone too far. I think that through the force of painting, the eye becomes trained to better perceive if all the necessary conditions for a painting to be finished are there. For me, it's about the overall harmony, being able to read through all the layers of paint, to glimpse the skeleton and see if there is a strangeness. Generally, I don't realize directly if a canvas is finished; I have to let it mature for a few days in the studio, to forget it and then to rediscover it with a fresh eye. However, I am incapable of reworking it because that would denature the emotion transcribed at the moment of creation.
Q: Growing up in a small town far from major cities, with little direct access to formal art education and only the flowers and plants in your everyday surroundings, how did this environment influence your early interest in art, your understanding of it, and the development of your personal artistic style?
Milène：I think that no matter where one grows up, one nourishes oneself with what one has. And I'm glad to have grown up surrounded by greenery. It requires a little more perseverance when you don't have the cultural and social background to succeed in this field.
Q: Your biography mentions that your grandmother's garden was almost like the first museum in your life. Could you share how this childhood memory continues to influence your artistic practice today? Flowers appear throughout your work-do you feel that this early experience has sustained your natural fascination and enduring interest in floral subjects?
Milène：I grew up with my grandparents in a village in eastern France, and our ritual every morning (and still now) was to walk around the garden accompanied by my grandmother's commentary. We are a working-class family, and I had this special bond with my grandmother who passed on to me the love of flowers. I always loved it when she told me about the different varieties. I loved seeing their evolution over days, months, seasons, and then years. She also painted small oil-painted bouquets and made postcards with dried flowers for her parish; we did them together. I remember always having been a painter; in middle school and high school, I took evening painting classes. I like to say that my grandmother's garden is my first museum because it also taught me to sharpen my thinking, to reflect on what flowers are in a more philosophical way: to paint flowers again and again is almost an act of resistance. Flowers are ephemeral; one can only love flowers when one realizes that life is short. It's a bit like appreciating a painting in a museum. Flowers, just like painting, move towards the light. Plants disappear, resurface, are born from their own seeds, and it's that tremor that I seek to capture. That's what makes them alive, just like this medium. I have an abstract vision of painting, which makes it my primary subject.
Q: In the traditional Chinese painting, floral subjects often employ 'emptiness'-the use of blank or open space-to create a sense of breath and to maintain tension between 'emptiness' and 'fullness.' You've mentioned your interest in the Chinese philosophical notion of 'emptiness and fullness,' and your works also contain a similar kind of atmospheric, breathing space. For you, is the 'emptiness' in your paintings intended to give the flowers greater fluidity and sense of light, or does it exist as an energetic, meaningful presence on its own?
Milène：For me, painting is dissociated from the subject; flowers are just a pretext, and what matters most is the painting itself. What interests me in this notion of emptiness in Chinese painting is, first of all, that a painting tends towards something spiritual. And I believe I like to see my paintings that way. Emptiness is an open space where true life is possible. There is also in emptiness the notion of breath, of vital breath, which interests me enormously in my practice and also in my personal life; I have been practicing tai chi and qi gong for years. For me, everything must be in harmony. The central element in Chinese painting is the brushstroke, which is intrinsically linked to the emptiness of the canvas. This stroke cannot exist without that emptiness. In painting as in tai chi, it's about finding the right gesture.
Q: Writing is an important part to your painting. Could you discuss how words typically pave the way for your visual creations? When words are translated into color and form, something is inevitably "lost." But in this process, what is "gained" that writing alone could not provide?
Milène：What I love about the pictorial language is that one can say what is not necessarily visible. It's much stronger than words because it leaves a great deal of freedom and imagination. Painting helps me to see better, and my goal is to share my vision, but also to share my emotion at the moment of making it. To be inundated by something unnameable.
Q: From the French countryside garden to your Brussels studio, and now to Shanghai, the light and atmosphere of different environments have each left their distinct imprint on your work. How is the unique light and rhythm of Shanghai currently influencing the dialogue you're having with your canvas?
Milène：I am very influenced by the studio I find myself in, and at the same time, I can easily adapt anywhere. In very large as in very small spaces. Inevitably, the paintings are always different when one changes studios. In Shanghai, my days were rhythmed by painting and long nocturnal walks; sometimes I walked more than 20 km per night, that helped me to think.
Q: To begin, could you briefly introduce the main theme or focus of your current residency at Leo Gallery Shanghai, and share the primary inspirations and ideas guiding your work during this period?
Milène：Prior to this residency, I tried to set everything up to be able to paint as if I were in my own studio. That is to say, I followed my usual process: I came with some images to paint (around 200), personal images or screenshots from films. As I habitually do in Brussels, I looked at these images every day to contemplate my next painting; the themes don't change. I envisioned a body of about twenty canvases, both small and large formats. The idea remained the same: to paint flowers, silhouettes, faces, depending on my desire and the present moment. I never draw beforehand, so I never know what the painting will look like. I think surprise is the most important thing in my work, and above all, to surprise myself. Each painting is like a new experiment that will depend on the day's mood and will bear witness to a time suspended in the studio.
Q: Your artistic style is highly distinctive, often characterized by a hazy, ephemeral poetry. How would you describe your artistic style and core creative approach to an audience unfamiliar with your work?
Milène：Using turpentine as a medium, I work by superimposing thin layers, of different tones, to achieve an atmosphere. I love playing with transparencies, allowing the skeleton of the canvas to show through. I never really learned to paint, but it was in museums, by looking closely at the edges of paintings, that I understood painting is a matter of layering-for instance, beneath the visible green on the canvas, one realizes there is yellow underneath. Then, I find a balance between the areas that are lightly passed over and the areas that are worked in detail, that is to say, between the moments where I lose myself (blurred zones) and the moments where I regain control (sharp zones). It's like a dance between flow and dryness, between the canvas and me.
Q: You begin each studio day with silent sitting. How did this habit form, and what does it bring to your day of creation?
Milène：Indeed, I am constantly thinking. In daily life, I rarely feel connected to the real; there's always a part of me that is reflecting. But when I paint, and when I am active in the studio, I then regain control over my thoughts, and it's the only moment where I feel the most grounded in reality. Painting doesn't help me escape; it allows me to regain control and to be in a state of lucidity and intense concentration. My gaze sharpens my thought and allows me to understand certain things. One could see this as meditation, but I am much more connected to the real when I paint than when I don't.
Q: "Transience" is central to your work. For you, is painting an attempt to "hold onto" the ungraspable moment, or rather the opposite-a way to make peace with, and even celebrate, this inherent ungraspability?
Milène：Yes, it is an attempt to hold onto an ungraspable instant. As I said, I place great importance on the creative process and thus on the time in the studio. When I paint, it's quite rapid, and I would like my canvases to be the abstract testimony of a time suspended in the studio, where I am both actor and spectator of my own painting. The idea is to capture something that I am incapable of saying or seeing. Although I use images to produce a painting, it's not about showing what I see, but rather what I do not see at first. Something that would be impossible to say or to see. I attach great importance to the epiphanic moment in the creative process. When the image appears, when one holds it.
Q: In your portrait works, the blurred facial features create a unique atmosphere. How do you determine the degree of blurriness a particular portrait requires?
Milène：The image is a starting point, and for portraits as for flowers, I try to treat each subject in the same way. What I love about flowers is also, and above all, that they allow me to shift into abstraction, which is much more complicated with faces. Besides, blurring a face doesn't necessarily mean making it out-of-focus; I prefer to suggest rather than to demonstrate. I don't like it when narrative takes over the painting; I prefer when the painting speaks for itself. That is why I try to distance myself from figuration, or to say as little as possible, in order to intrigue and to question.
Q: You've mentioned that "once a work is finished, I stop and won't rework it, because revisiting it would destroy the moment preserved during creation." How do you know when a painting is truly finished?
Milène：In painting, the work in progress evolves, takes other directions, sometimes escapes me. When I paint, I come into contact with the real (the material, the color) and thus I enter into a dialogue with my object; I lose control and I regain it; it's a constant game. So, I don't know when a painting is finished, but I know when I have gone too far. I think that through the force of painting, the eye becomes trained to better perceive if all the necessary conditions for a painting to be finished are there. For me, it's about the overall harmony, being able to read through all the layers of paint, to glimpse the skeleton and see if there is a strangeness. Generally, I don't realize directly if a canvas is finished; I have to let it mature for a few days in the studio, to forget it and then to rediscover it with a fresh eye. However, I am incapable of reworking it because that would denature the emotion transcribed at the moment of creation.
Q: Growing up in a small town far from major cities, with little direct access to formal art education and only the flowers and plants in your everyday surroundings, how did this environment influence your early interest in art, your understanding of it, and the development of your personal artistic style?
Milène：I think that no matter where one grows up, one nourishes oneself with what one has. And I'm glad to have grown up surrounded by greenery. It requires a little more perseverance when you don't have the cultural and social background to succeed in this field.
Q: Your biography mentions that your grandmother's garden was almost like the first museum in your life. Could you share how this childhood memory continues to influence your artistic practice today? Flowers appear throughout your work-do you feel that this early experience has sustained your natural fascination and enduring interest in floral subjects?
Milène：I grew up with my grandparents in a village in eastern France, and our ritual every morning (and still now) was to walk around the garden accompanied by my grandmother's commentary. We are a working-class family, and I had this special bond with my grandmother who passed on to me the love of flowers. I always loved it when she told me about the different varieties. I loved seeing their evolution over days, months, seasons, and then years. She also painted small oil-painted bouquets and made postcards with dried flowers for her parish; we did them together. I remember always having been a painter; in middle school and high school, I took evening painting classes. I like to say that my grandmother's garden is my first museum because it also taught me to sharpen my thinking, to reflect on what flowers are in a more philosophical way: to paint flowers again and again is almost an act of resistance. Flowers are ephemeral; one can only love flowers when one realizes that life is short. It's a bit like appreciating a painting in a museum. Flowers, just like painting, move towards the light. Plants disappear, resurface, are born from their own seeds, and it's that tremor that I seek to capture. That's what makes them alive, just like this medium. I have an abstract vision of painting, which makes it my primary subject.
Q: In the traditional Chinese painting, floral subjects often employ 'emptiness'-the use of blank or open space-to create a sense of breath and to maintain tension between 'emptiness' and 'fullness.' You've mentioned your interest in the Chinese philosophical notion of 'emptiness and fullness,' and your works also contain a similar kind of atmospheric, breathing space. For you, is the 'emptiness' in your paintings intended to give the flowers greater fluidity and sense of light, or does it exist as an energetic, meaningful presence on its own?
Milène：For me, painting is dissociated from the subject; flowers are just a pretext, and what matters most is the painting itself. What interests me in this notion of emptiness in Chinese painting is, first of all, that a painting tends towards something spiritual. And I believe I like to see my paintings that way. Emptiness is an open space where true life is possible. There is also in emptiness the notion of breath, of vital breath, which interests me enormously in my practice and also in my personal life; I have been practicing tai chi and qi gong for years. For me, everything must be in harmony. The central element in Chinese painting is the brushstroke, which is intrinsically linked to the emptiness of the canvas. This stroke cannot exist without that emptiness. In painting as in tai chi, it's about finding the right gesture.
Q: Writing is an important part to your painting. Could you discuss how words typically pave the way for your visual creations? When words are translated into color and form, something is inevitably "lost." But in this process, what is "gained" that writing alone could not provide?
Milène：What I love about the pictorial language is that one can say what is not necessarily visible. It's much stronger than words because it leaves a great deal of freedom and imagination. Painting helps me to see better, and my goal is to share my vision, but also to share my emotion at the moment of making it. To be inundated by something unnameable.
Q: From the French countryside garden to your Brussels studio, and now to Shanghai, the light and atmosphere of different environments have each left their distinct imprint on your work. How is the unique light and rhythm of Shanghai currently influencing the dialogue you're having with your canvas?
Milène：I am very influenced by the studio I find myself in, and at the same time, I can easily adapt anywhere. In very large as in very small spaces. Inevitably, the paintings are always different when one changes studios. In Shanghai, my days were rhythmed by painting and long nocturnal walks; sometimes I walked more than 20 km per night, that helped me to think.
Q: You mentioned wanting to experiment with working on several large canvases simultaneously during your residency at Leo Gallery. Beyond the physical freedom, could you talk about what new creative experiences this working method has brought you?
Milène：I usually paint several formats simultaneously, depending on the space available in the studio. It's something important for me because the different formats cannot be treated in the same way, and I need both to enrich each other and to find a balance. Large formats are simpler than small ones because mistakes can be hidden more easily; there is more room for escape.
Q: You have exhibited your work in both Europe and Asia. Have you noticed any differences in how audiences from these regions respond to your paintings? Were there any reactions that surprised or inspired you?
Milène：No, I haven't seen major differences. I think in Asia, people see the Asian side of my painting, and in Belgium, rather Flemish references. Regarding the paintings I created here, I feel a strong Chinese influence.
Q: Looking back on all your creations, from the earliest garden memories to the new works made during your Shanghai residency, what kind of mood or state of being do you hope viewers feel from your paintings? And when people leave your exhibition, what is the most important thing you hope they take with them?
Milène：Painting for me is something vital, like breath. I paint first and foremost for myself, as an outlet. Then, of course, I need the gaze of others. I think to provoke an emotion, no matter which one, is already a lot. I seek above all to make people see my vision, my reality.
Q: You mentioned wanting to experiment with working on several large canvases simultaneously during your residency at Leo Gallery. Beyond the physical freedom, could you talk about what new creative experiences this working method has brought you?
Milène：I usually paint several formats simultaneously, depending on the space available in the studio. It's something important for me because the different formats cannot be treated in the same way, and I need both to enrich each other and to find a balance. Large formats are simpler than small ones because mistakes can be hidden more easily; there is more room for escape.
Q: You have exhibited your work in both Europe and Asia. Have you noticed any differences in how audiences from these regions respond to your paintings? Were there any reactions that surprised or inspired you?
Milène：No, I haven't seen major differences. I think in Asia, people see the Asian side of my painting, and in Belgium, rather Flemish references. Regarding the paintings I created here, I feel a strong Chinese influence.
Q: Looking back on all your creations, from the earliest garden memories to the new works made during your Shanghai residency, what kind of mood or state of being do you hope viewers feel from your paintings? And when people leave your exhibition, what is the most important thing you hope they take with them?
Milène：Painting for me is something vital, like breath. I paint first and foremost for myself, as an outlet. Then, of course, I need the gaze of others. I think to provoke an emotion, no matter which one, is already a lot. I seek above all to make people see my vision, my reality.