Juxtapoz Magazine - Laure Mary: Being Normal Is Really Not Normal

"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."

"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."

Laure Mary unveils a New York debut that reorients her previous oneiric palette toward intentional minimalism. A personal purge in Paris, leaving only books, foregrounded literature’s role and provoked existential questions about value and freedom. A found slip bearing Hemingway’s six-word story crystallized the exhibition’s dramaturgy, where meaning grows from omission. Works emphasize absence to empower remaining elements; selected imagery — a deliberately broken egg, a reflected surface, light under a door — creates ambiguity and suggests rupture as prerequisite for new beginnings. The show functions as a puzzle, offering playful clues that invite viewer interpretation.

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