Laurent petit -2020

transmitting oblivion

September 5 - November 5, 2020

Laurent Petit. Bataille, 2017, engobed and glazed stoneware, h. 45.5 x 59.5 x 26.5 cm.

Coinciding with the presentation of his work at the La Piscine museum in Roubaix, as part of the "Carte blanche à la Galerie de l'Ancienne Poste", this second solo show at Laurent Petit's gallery unveils some fifteen recent sculptures in which the ceramic artist revives a certain form of narrative, through the reappropriation of myths and battles specific to Mediterranean culture.
Laurent Petit was born in Bourges, Cher, in 1962. A graduate of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and the Maison de la Céramique in Mulhouse, Laurent Petit has been working in ceramics since 1996. In 2019, he was one of the finalists in the 25^e edition of the Biennale Internationale de Céramique Contemporaine de Vallauris.

Exhibition catalogue

Laurent Petit has already said that his work is both pictorial and sculptural. The prominence he gives to white can evoke the viewer's very open space of projection in front of a canvas. For the artist, "It also gives a different, stronger value to what challenges white, i.e. material concretions and traces of color. Everything I add to white transcends it and allows me to search for an enigmatic minerality". He recalls that white was an obvious choice from the outset, under the influence of sculptor Gordon Baldwin, painter Joan Mitchell and, of course, Cy Twombly: "I think white allows me to bring a form of neutrality and calm, as a counterpoint to the very colorful areas, especially if I think back to my early ceramics, which were more material, with grain. Cy Twombly once said that the white areas of his paintings could be seen as neo-Romantic zones of memory. This definition suits me perfectly, as I consider my sculptures to be commemorative spaces on which I deploy traces". In his latest works, the white patches seem even more essential to Laurent Petit. He uses them as a metaphor for fragile reminiscence, realized by fine engobes hosting, in counterpoint, shiny areas that reflect an active memento. In life," he concludes, "these two notions always cohabit, combining fleeting memories with a vivid memory, all the more reanimated by what we see...
Marie Maertens
Curator and art critic,
Excerpt from the exhibition catalog

QuoteAuthor, April 2025
Excerpt from the exhibition catalog.