Anne-Laure Peressin

Born in 1991, Anne-Laure Peressin is an art critic and curator. She lives in Paris and resides at POUSH (Aubervilliers) at the Bureau des Penseur.euses. A graduate in law and art history, she was an active member of the Jeunes Critiques d’art (YACI ) collective from its inception to 2020, editor-in-chief of the art press for 4 years and children’s author in art history at Fleurus Editions. Since 2018, she has been a regular contributor to catalogs and interviews for the Ecole des Beaux-arts de Paris, as well as for private and international institutions (KIT museum in Düsseldorf, arTsenal de Dreux, FOCO gallery in Lisbon, Château du Marquis de Sade…).

As a curator, she develops exhibitions dedicated to the emerging contemporary scene, paying particular attention to the inclusion of younger audiences. She also sits on juries to award grants, production subsidies, residencies and exhibitions (expert at Carré sur Seine…).

Her research focuses on three main areas: the mediation of contemporary art with children; a reflection on the materiality of the object that makes the work, to probe its components and sensitive effects; and a reflexive approach to the exhibition process, in which space, works and devices are conditional elements of a total apprehension.

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Text by Anne-Laure Peressin for Laura Garcia Karras’ Rosebud exhibition

Flower, atom, and threat; Color, aroma, and shiver.

Everything is there, through their presence, through their strength

In a final sigh, the mysterious word resonates: rosebud

Borrowing from the end of Citizen Kane (1941) the title of her exhibition, Laura Garcia Karras begins a new series of paintings. Rosebud reveals twelve oil paintings like a bouquet of flower like entities.

Emblems of the poet, of love, purity or femininity… Roses seem to be trapped in labels which fade any emancipation attempt. If Laura Garcia Karras paints this flower, it’s not for its symbolic charm: her roses assert themselves in a magnetic duality.

On their dark background, the artist’s roses sound like bewitching threats and resonate as they bloom in the ether of the canvas. Each bud bursts “in power” and “in action” (according to Aristotle’s concept) to challenge the gaze, assert itself in front of us, and subvert the power games.

In the laboratory of her studio, Laura Garcia Karras sculpts the material with a scalpel and stretches paint with surgical precision. On canvases previously sketched out and then coated with wash, the chromatic palette ranges from light to dark, with gradations from sulfur to orange, passing through caramelized and spicy notes. No brushstrokes are visible, only the cut-outs of the shapes before coloring give a glimpse of the artist’s gestures.

In a moment of deep concentration, Laura Garcia Karras isolates each area to work on it as closely as possible. With the tip of her tool, she slowly caresses the oily material which tolerates no hesitation, no repentance. The shreds of paint then reveal their fibers, their raw flesh in a perfectly smooth, scratched composition. The paint areas never mix; each fragment divides into distinct fractals. Yet, , their union forges a sudden symphony, an almost fateful crescendo, like an atomic explosion.

If the works of Laura Garcia Karras raise questions about both the act of painting and the symbolism of figuration today, they also question our way of understanding a painting that disrupts the dynamics of seduction by tending towards their abolition.