What We Carry,
What We Pass On
By William Frankle, Co-curator, Galerie Emmanuelle Grelier
October 24, 2026
Circle of Life, 2024
What Holds Us at Galerie Emmanuelle Grelier, Beatriz Guzman Catena and Laurence Perratzi
When we walk into a room we hardly ever do so with fresh eyes. We project ourselves onto the space and, through sensory reminders, are transported back to a moment, time period, or connection. These emotions and memories are held not merely by the physical space or even by our physical bodies, but instead transcend the material, inhabiting a space beyond what can be literally seen. It is the warmth of our mothers holding us as children, the invisible strings that tie us to our friends and neighbors, and the people who give our lives meaning that support and carry us throughout our lives.
These are the ideas central to What Holds Us at Galerie Emmanuelle Grelier, where through the practices of Beatriz Guzman Catena and Laurence Perratzi we seek to explore the systems of support, physical, emotional, and relational, that contain and sustain us. At first glance, it may not seem like Catena’s vibrant, lush canvases have anything in common with Perratzi’s whimsical bronzes, but despite their formal differences, both artists work along similar themes. Catena’s architectural paintings meditate on memories of family, scenes of childhood, and the people and places that give our lives meaning. Perratzi’s sculptures also deal in moments, fostering an interplay between the heaviness of bronze and the fleeting nature of childhood, girlhood, and motherhood.
Eames
This exhibition was also inspired by the relationship between Catena, Perratzi, and gallery founder Emmanuelle Grelier, who, after working together for a decade, have a dynamic that mirrors the theme of the exhibition. Going through life together as women and mothers, they have become their own source of support, reflecting the unseen bonds that hold us. One of our favorite moments in the show is the dialogue between Catena’s Place Rivadavia III (2026) and Perratzi’s piece, The Circle of Life (2024).
At the heart of the Place Rivadavia series are the intergenerational bonds between women. In Place Rivadavia III, figures lean into each other in gestures of listening and confidence. A mother, painted in a soft blue that evokes the warmth of childhood, hands a basket of flowers to a child, a representation of Catena as a toddler. The flowers symbolize the nourishment given from mother to child. Behind the mother figure are past generations of women gathering flowers, as if cultivating a shared knowledge and history, suggesting an unbroken chain of wisdom being passed down by women throughout generations.
In The Circle of Life, Perratzi creates the same relationship in bronze. A mother figure stands, leaning, much like Catena’s, over towards her child with pride and admiration. Her left arm dissolves into a halo-like circle with a golden interior that carries the child who gazes up at her. Golden light emanates from the body of the mother, coating the child in its luminescence, representing the strength given from mother to child, that will be carried throughout the child’s life.
We paired these works in the show because they enact the same gesture in two different materials: a mother giving her child something to carry, nourishment in Catena’s flowers and strength in Perratzi’s golden light. Together they contemplate what holds us and the unseen memories and understandings we receive, give, and pass on to those who come after us. In curating sculpture and painting together, we also were interested in the material interplay between bronze and acrylic. Originally an architect, Catena constructs space in her paintings with diagrammatic accuracy. In works like La Nouvelle (2024) and Eames (2026), she uses stark lines and large fields of vibrant color that create rigid grids.
This complicates the assumed dynamic between sculpture and painting, as Perratzi’s sculptures, such as Pépite (2024) or Momentum (2025), with their curved lines and sense of delicate poise, occasionally appear softer than Catena’s paintings, despite being made in heavy bronze. This material dialogue reflects the theme of the exhibition, highlighting how even what is durable can appear fragile, and the physical spaces we imagine holding us can quickly fade into the realm of memory and ephemerality.
Most rewarding for us, however, was getting to work directly with the artists throughout the curation process. It was important for us to ground the gallery’s curatorial practice not just in the content of the work, but in a lived embodiment of its themes. Learning firsthand from the artists about the nuances of the work, from the decisions behind a brushstroke to the choice of a material, and having them collaborate not just with us but with each other throughout the process, allowed for a more holistically engaged exhibition. When placing the work, we noticed a thematic connection between Catena’s piece Onda Verde (2026) and Perratzi’s sculpture, Butterfly (2025).
The dense vegetation in Onda Verde is inspired by Catena’s childhood summers in Argentina which she described to us. The thick canopy of trees surrounding the little girl in Perratzi’s Butterfly also recalls the imaginative magic of a childhood in nature. In tandem, both works explore the lost world of childhood through the gaze of the present, a connection made possible through involvement of the artists in the process.
In an art world that has historically and continually maligned women and mothers, it mattered to not only center the experience of womanhood and motherhood within the exhibition itself; but to practice a collaborative process that not only led to an exhibition celebrating depictions of trust and support between women, but is itself a product of those bonds that hold us.
All photographs are by Lucy J Toms.
Butterfly