Home / Artists / Hervé PRIOU
Back

Hervé PRIOU

Hervé Priou's pictorial work is imbued with mystery. Using drawings from his notebooks, he develops paintings populated with human figures, which have become the core of his iconography. His gesture remains faithful to a practice of intensive drawing, but his painting has freed itself from a naturalistic rendering to take on a more direct, interior form.

His figures, with their stretched or disproportionate bodies, oscillate between autonomous figures and multiple facets of the same being.. The artist claims an approach nourished by Jungian thought and the notion of thecollective unconscious. He mobilizes archetypal symbols - iris, tree, ear, figure of the old man - which act as universal resonances.

His references range from dreams to art history. In particular, he evokes medieval representations, which influence his pictorial language: absence of geometric perspective, hierarchical figures, flat colors, use of repentance.

For him, the ear, a recurring motif, embodies a dual register: bodily singularity and openness to speech and knowledge. To paint the ear is to make visible the porosity between the world and the self.

Hervé Priou constructs a sensitive, dreamlike and sometimes absurd universe of genderless beings, mental objects and uncluttered landscapes, using intuitive painting, sometimes tinged with humor or gravity.

"Every time I paint a thing, that thing turns into another thing. Then I find myself surrounded by so many things that I'm lost in the Things. So, generally, I go for a walk." Hervé Priou

Biography

Hervé Priou was born in 1990. He lives and works between Paris and the center of France in Haute-Corrèze.

TRAINING

  • 2018 / Graduate of ENSBA, Paris, France
  • 2013 / Graduate of La Cambre, Brussels, Belgium

EXHIBITIONS

  • 2022 / Private Choice, Lignes de vie / Life lines, Paris
  • 2022 / Coming soon, Galerie Paris-B
  • 2021 / Private Choice, Odyssée / Odyssey, Paris
  • 2020 / Regard hors-champ et paysages, collection Agnès B., la Fab, Paris.
  • 2020 / Private Choice, Voyage intérieur / Inner journey , Paris.
  • 2020 / Moins de trente ans, Galerie du Jour, la Fab, Paris.
  • 2020 / La Hardiesse, collection Agnès B., la Fab, Paris.
  • 2020 / Opening of la Fab, Galerie du jour, la Fab, Paris.
  • 2019 / Private Choice, Affinités / Affinities, Paris.
  • 2019 / Super Position, group show, Lycée Julie Victoire Daubié, Argenteuill.
  • 2019 / Oils, Noucmas, Athens, Greece.
  • 2019 / Artistes Paysans, group show, Espace Création, Lacelle, Corrèze.
  • 2019 / Finale, exhibition of DNSAP 2018 graduates, Palais des Beaux Arts, Paris.
  • 2018 / Par amour du jeu, group show, Magasins Généraux, Pantin.
  • 2018 / DNSAP, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris.
  • 2016 / Soap dish, group show, l'Amour, Bagnolet.
  • 2016 / Paris Saint Pierre, group show, Saint-Pierre-en-Port.
  • 2016 / DNA, Beaux-Arts de Paris, Paris.
  • 2015 / Maman, Papa où ai-je mis mes doigts, solo show, Lyon Biennale, les Limbes, Saint-Étienne.
  • 2015 / Les Noces de Cana, solo show, les Limbes, Saint-Étienne.
  • 2015 / Muet2, group show, Frac Paca, Marseille.
  • 2014 / Conduite oblique, exhibition with Marine Semeria and Anaïs Hay, le Praticable, Rennes.
  • 2013 / Toranj/Tour, permanent installation, Karkatag residence, Svilajnac, Serbia.
  • 2013 / Ultraclean, exhibition with Rachel Simonin, la Soucoupe, Brussels, Belgium.2013 / Zone Nord, group show, Maison des Arts de Schaarbeck, Brussels.
  • 2012 / Domuzej 1 / Homuseum 1, group show, Galerie Legat Milice Zorić i Rodoljuba Čolakovića, Belgrade, Serbia.
  • 2012 / Calendar of Lies, group show, Hôtel van de Velde, Brussels.
  • 2012 / Hybride, group show, la Cambre, Brussels.
  • 2011 / La paire, group show, le 157, Brussels.
  • 2011 / Parcours, group show, la Cambre, Brussels.

RESIDENCES

  • 2019 / Oils, Noucmas, Athens, Greece.
  • 2017 / Almost like home, Bimslavja, Belgrade, Serbia.
  • 2013 / Un chantier au Train Fantôme, Train Fantôme, Grenoble.
Artists