BIO / ABOUT

Iannis Pledel is a French painter whose practice is grounded in the moment a figure, a gesture, or a perception reaches a tipping point while still being held.

His work is structured around three bodies of work:

  • In the Night Paintings, the human figure is held at the edge of a shift in bodily and emotional state, where posture and gesture remain in suspension.
  •  The Day Paintings explore the instability of the visible through reflection, surface, and spatial displacement.
  • The Portraits concentrate presence into minimal yet charged configurations of gaze, gesture, and bodily tension..

Across these works, painting operates as a means of holding form at the point where it begins to shift, without resolution or collapse.

CONTACT

iannis.pledel@gmail.com

SOLO EXHIBITIONS (Selected)

  • 2027 – La Galerie de La Gare, Houlgate (forthcoming / July 31 – August 13)
  • 2026 – Orangerie du Thabor, Rennes (forthcoming / July 6 – 12)
  • 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