Julien Spianti

Painter and filmaker
Works and lives in Paris

Imitation is one of painting’s fundamental prerogatives. With nothing more than color, we are able to create entire worlds. It is hard to imagine more modest tools with which to give substance to our visions and presence to our thoughts. This power can even seem magical.

Yet nothing is self-evident when we attempt to give form to what we wish to represent. Imitation is not the exact reproduction of things, but the translation of how they appear to us.

Painting teaches us, in this sense, that economy is not only possible but desirable: it is unnecessary to depict everything in order to make a presence felt. Imitation is therefore not a mere artifice, but a kind of supernatural power of invocation—taken seriously both by religions and, in our own way, by painters. For good reason: presence belongs to what we call Spirit.

For painters, this is nearly an alchemical knowledge—the ability to transform pigments mixed with glue into perceptions and sensations, into what we call images. The task seems almost impossible, perhaps even destined to fail. And yet it is this very quest that we pursue, with an enthusiasm that those around us may understandably find suspicious.

Since 2007, my resea...

1982 – Born in Chartres, in Carnute territory
1983 – Transitions from crawling to walking, finds balance
1990 – Awakening to the Liberal Arts (trivium and quadrivium)
1996 – Encounter with Authority and Love. Discovers a taste for conflict and recognizes love as a form of beneficial alienation

2005 – Master degree of philosophy and esthetics in Paris I Sorbonne
2008 – Moves to Brussels. First studio, first paintings.
2010 – Solo and group exhibitions in Paris and Brussels
2013/2016 – Works in Ivry-sur-Seine. Numerous exhibitions and fairs in France and internationally (Italy, Switzerland, Denmark)
2017 – Sudden divorce from painting. Year of wandering.
2019 – Joins the Yellow Vests movement.
2020 – After the failure of the revolutionary project, cleans tin cans with hand sanitizer.
2021 – Settles in Montreuil, sharing a flat with despair, and develops an original technique for drawing with felt-tip pens.
2023 – Publishes a collection of drawings (SUTURE) with Clément Kalsa.
2024 – Returns to painting with immense enthusiasm.

2024 - Galerie Hors Champs
2022 - Hors Champs - galerie Hors Champs
2020 - Eros - MEAM (Museum of Modern Art of Barcelona)
2019 - Un Secret - galerie Hors Champs
2016 - Eclaircies, collective at Gallery Marie Vitoux, Paris France
2016 - Des Figurations - Acte 1, Collective at Musée de la Louvière, september 17/november 6, La louvière, Belgium
2016 - FIGURATION 2.0 / La nouvelle scène figurative, CENTRE BOUVET-LADUBAY, Saumur, France
2016 - Collective show at Guido Romero Pierini Gallery, Paris, France
2016 - Sciences Politiques, Galerie Marie Vitoux, Paris, France
2016 - Open Factory 2, Noun, au 104, Paris, France
2016 - Ordo ab Chao, Galerie Valérie Delaunay, Paris, France
2016 - Demain la Veille, Les Musées du Mans, Le Mans, France
2015 - We do not belong to us, Galleri Oxholm, Copenhague, Danemark
Open source, Solo show at Fred Lanzenberg Gallery - 2014, september/october - Brussels, Belgium
L'homme est un homme pour l'homme, Solo show at Galerie d'(A) - Mai 9th / June 14th 2014 - Lausanne, Switzerland
L'arche, Solo Show at Marie Vitoux Gallery, September 26th / October 15th 2013 - Paris
Chic Dessin Art fair, one man show, March 30/April 1, 2012, Paris, France
Memento Vivi, Galerie Marie Vitoux, solo Show, march 8/a...