In his late teens, a fall from the trapeze ended Laurent’s acrobatic career. The injury was devastating, but it redirected his life. Unable to perform, he turned fully to painting, enrolling in an art academy in Paris. It was here that his classical talents began to flourish. His work displayed a mastery of form and composition, a synthesis of cubist fragmentation and the kinetic dynamism of modern sculpture. Critics hailed him as a prodigy, a bridge between the old and the new.

But something else was brewing beneath the surface. A traumatic childhood incident—the specifics of which Laurent himself could never recall had left a fissure in his psyche. By his early twenties, the split personality began to emerge.