Michel Testard

Michel Testard
wandering painter of faraway worlds

Born in Tokyo to a French artistic family, I grew up between cultures, people and ways of living. More than forty-five years of my life have unfolded far from France — childhood in Japan and Vietnam, later Africa and the UK, and twenty years in India. These places were never stations on a journey but temporary homelands, each leaving its own colour, rhythm and story within me. My painting begins there, in the emotional imprint of lived experience.

I paint what I have encountered — and what has stayed. A bend of the Ganges at dawn, the faded colours of mineral Ladakh, the majestic wilderness of Iceland, the twilight of a bazaar street in Rajasthan, the melancholy of forgotten cities. At times the real dissolves into the imaginary: dreamlike Goan rooms opening onto the sea; jungles murmuring like pages from Kipling; and sometimes strange portraits of musicians, rajas and yogis stepping forward with a touch of humour. My themes are not records of travel but echoes of true encounters — described and reinvented with tenderness.

I work quickly, letting intuition guide the brush. Influenced by masters such as Matisse, Gauguin and Amrita Sher-Gill, I favour colour over accuracy, emotion...

Art Student Ateliers de la Ville de Paris (ABA) 2019-2021
Civil engineer from the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées Paris, France
MBA from INSEAD Fontainebleau

- Oct 2017 Private Gallery Neuilly France
- May 2018 Bikaner House New Delhi India
- Dec 2018 Private Gallery Lord Byron Paris France
- March 2020 Gallery Art Indus New Delhi India
- June 2021 Gallery Z&O La Chartre sur le Loir - France
- May 2022 Gallery Montval sur Loir - France
- July 2022 Gallery de la Font, Eus - France
- Dec 2022 Gallery Michael Lonsdale Paris France
- March 2023 Rampuria Haveli, Bikaner India
-July Aug 2023 Gallery Nocogo La Chartre S/ Loir France
- February 2024 Private show in New Delhi
- July Aug 2025 Private Show in Neuilly s/Seine France