Seb, the smartphone junkie, 2020

Laurent Anastay-Ponsolle  

Made during confinement, the work paradoxically illustrates isolation by representing friends and moments from parties. Self-taught, Laurent Anastay-Ponsolle has always maintained an emotional relationship with his artistic practice: feelings are his favorite territory of exploration. From conception, he goes where his instincts guide him. He prefers to photograph his model from different angles to choose what interests him in a pose, rather than to transcribe the first truth.

An obsession, the hands. Possessive, fragile or powerful, sensual or even anonymous, they arise like specters to capture the attention and to provide the essential emotional charge of the composition. With his erratic line, Laurent Anastay-Ponsolle tracks down emotions to lay them bare. He explores the sensitive, the ephemeral, the fragile. By accumulation or erasure, the eye is lost and individuals disappear: infinite, perpetual embraces, by forgetting oneself or the other, traits and personalities fade.

To express this research, a medium of evidence, drawing. Then the painting. However, even through it, the drawing reappears as an indelible mark. Saturation, breathing, his regrets are apparent: he crosses out, erases and underlines his point. Forbidding himself the gum, his technique is in the image of his subject: embodied, raw, and spontaneous.