ISABELLE BONZOM

THE BAROQUE ROCKS OF SAINT-ROCH

An ensemble of frescoes by Isabelle Bonzom

Site specific solo exhibition at the Chapel of the Souls in Purgatory in Saint-Roch's Church, Paris,

as part of the 2026 Contemporary Art Biennial of the Ateliers des Arts Sacrés (Sacred Arts Workshops) organization 

Exhibition from May 14 to June 13, 2026

Facade of Saint-Roch's Church, in Paris

Isabelle Bonzom is a painter, muralist, and fresco artist. Since 1987, she has regularly worked on-site, creating works specifically designed for the location. Isabelle Bonzom’s art is a total immersion in the world of painting and the interplay of color and light. The artist perceives the world through the sensory experience of painting. Her preferred techniques are oil, watercolor and buon fresco—painting on fresh lime coating. She has been creating frescoes since 1988. The founder of the Pari(s) Affresco non-profit organization, Isabelle Bonzom is also the author of the reference book "La fresque, art et technique" ("Fresco painting, art and technique"), Eyrolles publishing house, 2010, which received support from the CNL (French National Center for Books).

Isabelle Bonzom previuously participated in the “Art dans les Chapelles” event in Brittany and later exhibited at the Chapelle de la Salpêtrière in Paris. For the Contemporary Art Biennial at Saint-Roch's Church, known as the artists’ parish in Paris, Isabelle Bonzom has created “Les Incarnats de Saint-Roch” ("Baroque rocks of St Roch") a site-specific ensemble conceived for and displayed in the Chapel of the Holy Souls in Purgatory.

“The Baroque Rocks of Saint-Roch”: a mural project by Isabelle Bonzom

Throughout her artistic career, which began in 1983, Isabelle Bonzom has sought in her work to convey a sense of presence rather than to merely depict. Her painting offers a vitalistic perspective on human beings and their natural or built environment. At the sacred art exhibition at Saint Roch's Church, she then created a series of frescoes inspired by the church’s marble, as well as by the baptismal chapel. Isabelle Bonzom was struck by the predominance of marble inside Saint Roch's, particularly the “incarnats”—the red marble quarried in the Caunes-Minervois area of southwestern France since Roman times and found in prestigious monuments from Saint Roch’s to Notre Dame de Paris to Versailles and beyond. 

Through fresco painting, Isabelle Bonzom underlines connections and an interplay of metamorphoses between the aquatic, the mineral, the organic and the cosmic. She highlights the relationships between the spiritual and the sensory, that is meaning through the senses. 

The fresco, or buon fresco—painting on fresh coating composed of air lime—follows the cycle of lime, which reverts to limestone after carbonation. It is this physical phenomenon and its aesthetic implications in the fresco that prompted the artist to explore the connections between buon fresco and marble.

“Incarnats de Saint-Roch” or "The Baroque Rocks of Saint-Roch" by Isabelle Bonzom in the Chapel of the Souls in Purgatory

In this series of frescoes inspired by the Saint Roch's “incarnats” (French for red marble), Isabelle Bonzom uses her brush to explore the iconographic connections between various elements in Christian painting : the water of baptism, the wood veins of the Cross and the blood of Christ. Her paintings are a meditation on symbols of life, unconditional love, rebirth and light through forms such as the spiral, the heart and the cross. Her series features four colors. Whites for the light of lime coating, the veins of marble, ashes or foam. Greens evoke nature, hope or water. The reds suggest life, the interior of the body, the crimson marble, the wounds of Christ and Saint Roch. And the blues—the colors of the sky, water or lapis lazuli.

The Chapel of the Souls in Purgatory at Saint-Roch's Church and "The Baroque Rocks of Saint-Roch" project,

a site-specific ensemble of frescoes by Isabelle Bonzom