Being Normal Is Really Not Normal, artist Laure Mary unveils her debut solo exhibition in New York, a special moment as her paintings have never before been shown in the city. This exhibition isn't just a show; it's a puzzle that reveals itself, a playful key to unlock the unexpected corners of our mind. Mary's intentional minimalism, paired with her wittiness, serves as a trail of clues for you to decipher.
Normal for Mary’s artistic style, until now, was characterized by vibrant, oneiric compositions. This new body of work marks a pivotal shift that came from a deeply personal act of purge: after getting rid of almost everything in her Parisian apartment except her books, she crystalized the profound importance of literature in her life. It sparked a series of existential questions about her artistic identity: Which things truly matter to me? What do I want to be free of?
Is there an answer to these questions in what remains? Yes, it was waiting on a piece of paper. While revisiting a book she hadn't touched in years, she found a slip tucked within its pages, just like a predestined encounter. On it, she had written six words: "For sale: Baby shoes, Never worn," Ernest Hemingway's legendary short story. Once meaningless, its profound truth now reveals itself, a striking parallel to her own artistic explorations, where the dramaturgy emerges from the absence of information.
Really, this philosophy becomes the core of the exhibition. By choosing which elements to omit, Mary gives immense power to those that remain. In the painting That evening the sun didn't set, the flawless yet disturbing egg, with its reflection creates an unsettling ambiguity, blurring the lines between above and beneath. This deliberately broken egg and the light under the door, suggest a path toward new beginnings. It signifies that breakthrough demands a necessary rupture with the familiar. Much like the artist's personal purge, to create vital room for the new.
Not showing everything becomes a statement. This focus finds an echo in Bret Easton Ellis’s Less Than Zero, the first novel Mary bought for herself exactly 20 years ago, and one that became a turning point in her life. It captures a profound sense of moral emptiness and the emotional paralysis of a generation adrift in its own privilege and excess. An exchange encapsulating this idea occurs when Clay tells Rip, "But you don't need anything. You have everything" and Rip answers, "I don't have anything to lose.”
Normal, then, is redefined as clutter. The surface of things is never the whole truth. Laure Mary channels her personal journey into poignant paintings where light reveals form, but darkness tells the story. Inviting the audience to strip away the noise and to see the complex, contradictory and deeply human reality that lies just behind what we thought we knew.
—Lisa Boudet, writer and curator
Laure Mary (b. 1989) received degrees with first class honors from École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Lyon; she is currently based in Paris. Most recently, Mary’s work has been the subject of presentations at Richard Heller Gallery, Santa Monica, CA (2025, 2022, and 2021); Dio Horia Gallery, Athens (2024 and 2021); Domaine de Roueïre Museum, Sud-Hérault, FR (2021); Contemporary Art Center VOG, Grenoble (2018); and International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Lyon (2017). Reviews of her work have appeared in Artnet, Elephant, ELLE, and Juxtapoz.