“Sutures” - Encres et fusains de Sandra Ghosn

Why “Sutures”? Because, as Sandra Ghosn explains, “In black ink and charcoal, the lines become stitches between the blank spaces left by the bombings and the determination to draw a future of our own choosing. They anchor our gaze in a present where the breath of those who are absent lingers.” On view at the IMA Library, a selection of works created between 2022 and 2026 speaks to the unbreakable bond between the past wounds of her native country and a world taking shape.

The exhibition will open on 18 April with a conversation with the artist, interviewed by curator and art critic Claire Luna.

“This is the starting point for my reflections on connection, memory and what takes shape in defiance of forgetting. My drawings extend this idea, capturing what is fading while sustaining a tension towards what is struggling to emerge. When one world collapses and another emerges, what remains to be seen? This exhibition inhabits that space.

With this in mind, I gathered the poems of my grandfather, Ghantous Saliba. His book of Zajal poetry, Ghoullat Omr, begun in Byblos in 1960 and completed in 1985 at the height of the Lebanese Civil War, is written in a language deeply shaped by its homeland. It moves me all the more today because I never knew him during his lifetime. His memory reaches me beyond his death, surviving the threats of destruction that still hang over the landscape of his birthplace.

Sutures grew out of this encounter. In black ink and charcoal, the lines become stitches between the blank spaces left by the bombings and the determination to draw a future of our own choosing. They anchor our gaze in a present where the breath of those who are absent lingers.” Sandra Ghosn

##### Works on display

* Au cœur des étoiles, 140 × 100 cm, India ink on paper, 2022
* Émergence, 428 x 150 cm, India ink on paper, 2024
* 4 large hanging works, 120 x 90 cm, India ink on paper, 2025
* 42 small works, 29.7 x 21 cm, India ink on paper, 2026



##### Sandra Ghosn

Sandra Ghosn is a French-Lebanese artist born in Beirut in 1983, where she grew up against the backdrop of the civil war. She studied illustration and comics at the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts (ALBA), before continuing her training at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs (ENSAD) in Paris, specialising in print-based imagery.

Based in France since 2008, she has developed a drawing-centred practice using India ink, graphite and pen, exploring the density of line, the white space of paper and the psychological processes involved in making images. Her work lies at the intersection of contemporary drawing and poetic storytelling, confronting viewers with what emerges from the unconscious and from spaces left undepicted.

She has exhibited widely in France and internationally, including at Salon DDessin (Paris), La Ferme du Buisson (as part of the PULP Festival), the École normale supérieure in Paris and Menart Fair at the Palais d’Iéna.

In 2019, she received the Mahmoud Kahil Award for a book published by Les Crocs Électriques. That same year, she created the cover for Samandal magazine, which won the Fauve d’or for experimental comics at Angoulême.

Her book Séances Spéciales, published in 2025 with support from DRAC Île-de-France and the City of Poitiers, moves between words and images to create a reflective space where drawing and storytelling intertwine, offering a meditation on memory, intimacy and language.