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Hervé PRIOU

Hervé Priou constructs a pictorial work imbued with mystery. Starting from drawings from his notebooks, he develops paintings populated with human figures, which have become the heart of his iconography. His gesture remains faithful to a practice of intensive drawing, but his painting has freed itself from a naturalistic rendering to embrace a more direct and more interior form.

His characters, with elongated 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 collective unconscious. He mobilizes archetypal symbols — iris, tree, ear, figure of the old man — which act as universal resonances.

His references draw as much from dreams as from the history of art. He evokes in particular the medieval representations, which influence his pictorial language: absence of geometric perspective, hierarchization of figures, flat colors, use of repentance.

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

With an intuitive painting, sometimes tinged with humor or gravity, Hervé Priou constructs a sensitive, dreamlike, sometimes absurd universe, populated by beings without precise gender, mental objects and refined landscapes.

Biography

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

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND

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

EXHIBITIONS

  • 2022 / Private Choice, Lines of life / Life lines, Paris
  • 2022 / Coming soon, Galerie Paris-B
  • 2021 / Private Choice, Odyssey / Odyssey, Paris
  • 2020 / Off-screen view and landscapes, Agnès B. collection, la Fab, Paris.
  • 2020 / Private Choice, Inner journey, Paris.
  • 2020 / Moins de trente ans, Galerie du Jour., la Fab, Paris.
  • 2020 / La Hardiesse, Agnès B. collection, la Fab, Paris.
  • 2020 / Opening of la Fab, Galerie du jour, la Fab, Paris.
  • 2019 / Private Choice, Affinities, Paris.
  • 2019 / Super Position, group exhibition, Lycée Julie Victoire Daubié, Argenteuill.
  • 2019 / Huiles, Noucmas, Athens, Greece.
  • 2019 / Artistes Paysans, group exhibition, Espace Création, Lacelle, Corrèze.
  • 2019 / Finale, exhibition of DNSAP 2018 graduates, Palais des Beaux Arts, Paris.
  • 2018 / Par amour du jeu, group exhibition, Magasins Généraux, Pantin.
  • 2018 / DNSAP, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris.
  • 2016 / Porte-savon, group exhibition, l’Amour, Bagnolet.
  • 2016 / Paris Saint Pierre, group exhibition, Saint-Pierre-en Port.
  • 2016 / DNA, Beaux-Arts de Paris, Paris.
  • 2015 / Mom, Dad, where did I put my fingers, solo exhibition, Lyon Biennale, les Limbes, Saint-Étienne.
  • 2015 / The Wedding at Cana, solo exhibition, les Limbes, Saint-Étienne.
  • 2015 / Muet2, group exhibition, Frac Paca, Marseille.
  • 2014 / Conduite oblique, exhibition with Marine Semeria and Anaïs Hay, le Praticable, Rennes.
  • 2013 / Toranj/Tour, permanent installation, Karkatag residency, Svilajnac, Serbia.
  • 2013 / Ultraclean, exhibition with Rachel Simonin, la Soucoupe, Brussels, Belgium.2013 / Zone Nord, group exhibition, Maison des Arts de Schaarbeck, Brussels.
  • 2012 / Domuzej 1 / Homuseum 1, group exhibition, Galerie Legat Milice Zorić i Rodoljuba Čolakovića, Belgrade, Serbia.
  • 2012 / Calendar of Lies, group exhibition, Hôtel van de Velde, Brussels.
  • 2012 / Hybride, group exhibition, la Cambre, Brussels.
  • 2011 / La paire, group exhibition, le 157, Brussels.
  • 2011 / Parcours, group exhibition, la Cambre, Brussels.

RESIDENCIES

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