Story written by Ian Phillips

Laurence Bonnel, founder of the Paris-based design gallery Scene Ouverte, claims she became a dealer in 2016 partly out of boredom. Before that, she’d concentrated solely on developing her own career as a sculptor, with which she found a notable amount of success. Her slightly abstract, elongated human figures in bronze drew clients such as Picasso-scion Olivier Widmaier Picasso. “He wrote to me afterwards to say my sculpture was in good company, close to paintings by both his grandfather and Dora Maar,” she recalls with obvious delight. Thirteen of her pieces stand in the lobby of the Hôtel de Paris Saint-Tropez, and others have been sold to the king of Saudi Arabia. Despite the achievements, Bonnel felt something was missing. “I’m hyperactive and always need a goal,” she explains. “I’d find myself feeling down between two exhibitions.”

To fill the void, she set up a stand at the Paris flea market before opening her first gallery in Paris in 2018. It sat directly above Allénothèque restaurant, run by her husband, the multi-Michelin-starred chef Yannick Alléno. She moved on from there two years ago and now operates Scène Ouverte out of a 1,400-square-foot space located at the back of a courtyard on rue Mazarine in the heart of Saint-Germain- des-Prés. In French, scène ouverte means “open stage,” and Bonnel says she chose the name because she liked evoking a notion of endless possibilities. “I didn’t want to set any limits on what I’d show,” she says.

Bonnel first participated in Design Miami / in 2019, and has since become a staple of the fair. In December 2022, her brightly hued stand was dominated by a plethora of wonderfully playful floor lamps by one of the gallery’s stars, Léa Mestres. “It was like something out of Alice in Wonderland,” says Bonnel. Most recently, this past December, her presentation featured nine designers exploring the possibilities of their chosen materials, pushing their media to new scales and functions—and beyond their usual limits.

The works on display included a striking, large-scale blue curvaceous bench made from identical ceramic modules by Rino Claessens, and painterly glass floor lamps by Diane Benoît du Rey that took over two years to develop. “When you switch it on, you have a gradation of color, like a sunrise,” Bonnel explains.

She also introduced the work of a new artist to the gallery: the Finnish-born stylist and designer Anna Pesonen, who has created a pair of stunningly sculptural chairs out of Carrara marble. The first, a love seat called Discourse, was presented at the inaugural Paris edition of Design Miami/ in October 2023. The second, Introspective, was unveiled in Miami and consists of two hollowed-out cubes stacked on top of each other. “When I saw photos of them for the first time, I wondered why nobody had created them before,” says Bonnel. “The form seems so obvious. At the same time, when you see them from the back, you get the impression they’re resting on a slim sliver of marble. The effect is quite impressive.”

Bonnel developed her eye from an early age. Her parents were collectors of fine 18th-century furniture and objects, and later, of contemporary art. Bonnel herself studied French literature, choosing the Sorbonne largely because of the beauty of its amphitheaters. “I had a very aesthetic approach to my studies,” she says.

She first enrolled in sculpture classes during a sabbatical year after graduation. “I’d have loved to be a painter, but have a fear of the blank canvas,” Bonnel says. “However, if you give me some clay, I’ll make something straight away.” The Brooklyn, New York-based ceramicist William Coggin, whom the gallery has represented since 2017, believes that Bonnel’s own practice as a sculptor is one thing that sets her apart from other dealers. “She has an insight into the process of art making, which most other dealers don’t,” he says.

Other qualities cited by her roster of artists include her drive and vision. “Laurence is very motivated and likes to take risks,” says Chilean artist Abel Cárcamo Segovia. “She always tries to innovate.” Mestres agrees. “She never follows trends, but rather makes choices with her heart.”

Over the years, the work Bonnel has presented has become increasingly graphic and radical. Forms are more minimal, with the focus instead on interesting use of materials. Mestres’ ultra-shiny, polished-aluminum Bubble Bench is a perfect example, as is the expressive way in which Timothée Musset uses wood. Bonnel constantly encourages her artists to develop works on a larger scale—an approach that has led to several site-specific creations including an almost-23-foot-high wrought-iron and porcelain chandelier imagined by Célia Bertrand for the Domaine des Andéols resort in the Luberon region in the south of France.

Bertrand also created another custom ceiling fixture for Alléno’s Michelin-starred sushi bar, L’Abysse, in Paris, which had its interior designed by Bonnel. The space features a dramatic 56-foot-long ceramic wall by Coggin. “I work in the opposite way to an interior designer, who would come up with a concept and look for artworks to fit into it,” she says. “I start with the artworks and build the space around them.” She has also been entrusted by her husband to design two chocolate stores in the French capital, both of which are clad in expressive Calacatta Viola marble.

With so much going on, it’s safe to say that Bonnel’s energetic tendencies are more than satisfied. Yet, she does admit to having one slight regret: not finding more time to spend in her Normandy, France sculpture studio. “With all my other activities, I don’t feel stifled creatively,” she says. “But I do miss fiddling with clay.”