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.

– Anne-Laure Peressin, curator of the exhibition