CONTACT

iannis.pledel@gmail.com

Iannis Pledel is a French painter whose work explores moments of instability, when appearances falter and inner tensions surface. He focuses on what emerges just before disappearing: reflections, fleeting lights, ambivalent expressions, and charged gestures.

His practice unfolds through two main bodies of work. The Night Paintings depict human figures at tipping points, where vulnerability and contained violence are revealed through posture and gaze. The Day Paintings explore interior–exterior scenes drawn from everyday life, addressing reflections, transparency, and the movement of the gaze.

Through a fluid and structured pictorial language, Pledel creates images suspended between familiarity and strangeness, where the visible and invisible converge.

Trained at Gobelins School of Visual Arts and Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, and holding a PhD in Political Science, he has exhibited in France and internationally, notably at Lumas Galleries and the Xi’an Museum in China. He also collaborates on visual and artistic projects with brands and selected artists.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS (Selected)

• 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