Laurent Anastay Ponsolle
- Michael Hanna
- Apr 5
- 2 min read
Laurent Anastay Ponsolle is a figurative draftsman who has exhibited in Paris, London, Berlin, and Los Angeles. Recent exhibitions include features and inclusions in the Sister Midnight Festival in Los Angeles, Mathilde Plateau on Solid’Art art fair, at le Carreau du Temple, Action Hybride at 100ECS, Galerie La Ralentie, and Espace Canal Saint Martin all in Paris, and Omnide++ Gallery in London. Laurent describes his process; “by drawing live as the dancers perform, I aim to capture what is inherently ungraspable: the gesture, the breath, the fleeting balance before it dissolves. This dual approach —between permanence and impermanence — defines my creative process and fuels my exploration of the body as a vessel of memory and expression”.
photography by Peggy Cremin
What gives Laurent’s action drawings such authenticity would be how he captures his subjects through live dancing performances. These senses of motion reflect the fast-moving tendencies of contemporary society as everyone and everything seems to be in constant transit. His marks streak across the canvas in large drawings which envelope a space, sometimes followed by white acrylic to accentuate the charcoal. The jagged linearity seems to represent the spirit of motion and form rather than through direct portrayal. These grand poetic works symbolize the beauty of exposed form, unfiltered and improvised capturing of movement within space represented on the raw surface of the canvas.
The contour lines shift from deep darkness to light scratches, giving off the impression the drawings are slashes rather than a continuous drawing on the plane. With rapid linearity, the countless number of lines symbolize and express motion as they surround the defining form of the figure. She, the dancer, becomes representative of combining two artforms into one, the act of performative dance and then the capture of such action through expressive drawing. Laurent creates dialogue and purpose between connecting performance with traditional fine art such as drawing. Such integrative methods create a deeper narrative to the conclusion of the finished piece.
Glam & Wild (pictured above) remains one of Laurent's finest works. The piece uses heavy use of acrylic white paint to accentuate the interior of the charcoal drawing. Without the paint, the drawing would appear almost non-figurative, the way of which has been applied due to the chaotic nature of the marks. The paint adds a sense of balance and structure to the drawing. The various ‘V-like’ compositions enhance the dance-structural qualities of the work.
Laurent Anastay Ponsolle can be described as a vibrant draftsman who crafts the art of drawing beyond just singular approaches. Because his work becomes a reflection of performance, there remains a deeper purpose to his methodology and capturing form. His intuition builds on traditions of great expressionists such as Egon Schiele and early 20th century modernist movements such as Futurism. Laurent’s philosophical approach to capturing the temporary nature of performance and documenting the practice through expressive drawing remains just as viable as a filmmaker or photographer wishing to express the artform themselves but with a distinct expressive interpretation of accentuating sustained motion through the power of the mark.
