Anaïs Maar

"I feel the dark, amazing, and the tender light

Of some small understanding that rises out of

The trouble of things."

—Mary Oliver

In Fight or F/light, Anaïs Maar doesn't simply paint with color—she paints with transformation. There is an almost paradoxical beauty in her work, where darkness and light, struggle and growth, exist side by side. Her canvases are alive with vibrant yellows, fiery reds, and bold oranges, as though each hue is fighting to emerge from the shadows. It's a celebration of light, but not the kind that simply radiates from above—it's the kind that rises slowly, almost painfully, from within.

The paintings are full of symbols—variously animals, figures, objects—that speak of strength, defiance, and the quiet power that can come after turbulence. Take PURE, for example, where a woman holds two swans by the neck. Traditionally symbols of grace and purity, these swans are captured here—reclaimed. There's an assertion in the way the woman holds them. A power over what was once untouchable. It's a delicate defiance, an act of regaining control when it seems like everything else may have slipped through her grasp. In Is this what you want, a woman devours a snake—a bold, sly move, turning a twisted power dynamic on its head.

In Fight or F/light, Anaïs Maar doesn’t simply paint with color—she paints with transformation. There is an almost paradoxical beauty in her work, where darkness and light, struggle and growth, exist side by side. Her canvases are alive with vibrant yellows, fiery reds, and bold oranges, as though each hue is fighting to emerge from the shadows. It’s a celebration of light, but not the kind that simply radiates from above—it’s the kind that rises slowly, almost painfully, from within.

The paintings are full of symbols—variously animals, figures, objects—that speak of strength, defiance, and the quiet power that can come after turbulence. Take PURE, for example, where a woman holds two swans by the neck. Traditionally symbols of grace and purity, these swans are captured here—reclaimed. There’s an assertion in the way the woman holds them. A power over what was once untouchable. It’s a delicate defiance, an act of regaining control when it seems like everything else may have slipped through her grasp.

In Is this what you want, a woman devours a snake—a bold, sly move, turning a twisted power dynamic on its head. Nearby, in another painting, a dog rests between two figures locked in an embrace, its presence both a warning and a promise. A symbol of danger, yes, but also of freedom—of the raw, untamed aspects of ourselves that we are constantly trying to reconcile with love, with connection. There’s an underlying tension here: what do we risk when we choose freedom? And what do we sacrifice when we choose love?

These paintings don’t demand answers, but they do ask us to look more deeply at the light we seek and the shadows that inevitably accompany it. In Fight or F/light, Maar doesn’t promise an easy resolution, but she offers a glimpse of the complexity of healing and the fierce tenderness that can emerge when we choose to rise from the darkness that shapes us and find transformation in the small, yet profound, understandings that so surface.

Anaïs Maar (b. 1993, Neuville-sur-Saône, France) lives and works in Paris. She received her BFA at Émile Cohl in 2015. Recent solo exhibitions include at Galerie Tracanelli (2024), Grenoble; and Supramare, Marseille (2023). Maar is the co-founder of the artist residency Soleil D'Hiver, which will host its fifth edition in March 2025 in Hyères, France.