BIO / ABOUT

Iannis Pledel is a French painter who interrogates moments of visual instability, where appearances shift and inner tensions surface. His practice unfolds across three principal bodies of work:

  • Night Paintings  — depicting figures in transitional and tipping-point situations, where gestures and postures reveal subtle tension and vulnerability.
  • Day Paintings — exploring interior–exterior spaces and reflections, where layers of light and transparency disrupt familiar markers.
  • Portraits — focusing on the sitter’s presence through subtle gestures and gaze, capturing the delicate interplay between interiority and appearance.

Across these paintings, Pledel explores the space where the familiar dissolves and strangeness emerges, producing works in which visible and invisible converge, and spatial layering generates immediacy and perceptual depth.

CONTACT

iannis.pledel@gmail.com

SOLO EXHIBITIONS (Selected)

  • 2026 – Orangerie du Thabor, Rennes
  • 2023 – Inside Out, Art Center Cresco, Saint-Mandé
  • 2022 – Floating Souls, Art Center Cresco, Saint-Mandé
  • 2022 – Dédales, Town Hall Cultural Center, Paris
  • 2019 – Fragments of Desires & Odyssey, La Cale 2 Créateurs Gallery, Nantes
  • 2019 – Fragments of Desires, Cité des Arts, Chambéry
  • 2014 – The Parisian Girls (duo with Stéphane Manel), Colette, Paris
  • Selection 2012–2014 – Galerie B, Pont-Aven ; Chapelle Saint-Roch, Argentan ; La Galerie des 13 Regards, Paris ; Le Saturne, Paris

AWARDS & HONORS

  • 2020 – Antoine de Galbert Foundation Grant
  • 2018, 2022 & 2023  – Certificate of artistic merit, Luxembourg Art Prize, Pinacothèque Museum

PUBLICATIONS, CATALOGS, PRESS (Selected)

  • Liberation of Arts: 20 Years of Lumas, teNeues, 2024
  • Lumas Art Magazine, vol. I & II, 2020–2023
  • Estée Lauder Pink Ribbon Photo Award, Éditions Xavier Barral, 2017
  • Normal, Art Photography, n°5 & n°6, 2015
  • Catalogs : Centre d’Art le Cresco, Cité des Arts Xi’an, Salon d’Automne, Le Colette, Cité des Arts de Chambéry
  • Press : Magazine of Saint-Mandé, Le Parisien, Ouest-France, Paris dis-sept, Le 13 du mois, Journal de l’Orne

BOOKS & ARTISTIC PROJECTS

  • Château Shadow (90 p., 50 photographs), 2016
  • The Escape from Venice (170 p., 75 photographs), 2013

ARTISTIC COLLABORATION (Selected)

  • Photography and exhibitions: Colette, Paris (Les Parisiennes with Stéphane Manel)
  • Artist and personality portraits, album covers, and other works: Génération Goldman, Electro Deluxe, Acquin, Le Quintet Syntonia.
  • Visual projects and campaigns: Estée Lauder, Nokia, Les Théâtres Parisiens Associés, Withings, Le Design Français, Eduniversal

EDUCATION & TRAINING

  • 2017 – Gobelins, School of Visual Arts, Paris
  • PhD, Sciences-Po Aix (2009, Very Honorable)
  • Master’s in Epistemology, Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne / ENS Ulm / EHESS (2004)
  • Specialized workshops: platinum-palladium printing (studio of Laurent Lafolie & Carlos Barrantes, Paris); screen printing with Daido Moriyama, Paris; intaglio printing, Venice

TEACHING & RESIDENCIES (Selected)

  • 2022 – Lecture, Art Center Cresco, Saint-Mandé
  • 2020 – Painting and drawing, Maison Marceau Residency, Paris
  • 2020 – Mural and fresco painting, Maison Marceau Residency with the Aurore Association, Paris
  • 2019 – Residency and workshop, Cité des Arts de Chambéry / Musée des Beaux-Arts, Chambéry