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Alexis Ralaivao joins Kasmin

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March 13, 2024

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Alexis Ralaivao

Kasmin is delighted to welcome Alexis Ralaivao (b. 1991, France) to the gallery. To celebrate the announcement, two new paintings by the artist will be featured in our Art Basel Hong Kong presentation from March 28–30. The artist’s first exhibition at Kasmin went on view at the gallery’s 297 Tenth Avenue space in June 2023.

Ralaivao’s sensual and diaristic oil paintings find affective charge in carefully selected quotidian scenes. Reimagining the Northern European tradition of genre painting, Ralaivao seamlessly synthesizes the techniques and attentive gaze of Dutch Golden Age painters—Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Ter Borch among them—while remaining rooted in our contemporary society. “I start with a scene from everyday life, ordinary intimate moments,” the artist has said. “But as I sketch and paint them, they become something more. Layers after layers, what was the ‘truth’ is mixed with my personal feelings, desires and fantasies.” Using classical painterly techniques, Ralaivao’s sensitive encapsulations of his subjects’ daily routines possess a timeless humanity and immediacy. His works deftly synthesize wide-reaching cultural reference points, drawing from his ongoing, intensive autodidactic studies of the history of painting and composition, the language of photography, antiques, and French literature. With a deep understanding and appreciation of the artistic allusions in his work, Ralaivao firmly establishes himself in the lineage of painting’s masters and mavericks.

Eric Gleason, Head of Sales at Kasmin, says: “Alexis' painting practice is one of the most genuine, sincere and thoughtful that I have encountered within his generation. His obsession with the history of painting is unwavering, his technical facility impressive, and his commitment to the studio inspiring. Our collaboration has been a true pleasure from the outset and Kasmin is honored to be Alexis' representing gallery going forward."
Alexis Ralaivao, La source lumineuse, 2022. Private Collection.

Blending an impressionistic soft-focus with strategic photographic framing, Ralaivao’s distinctive crops both invite and refuse. The artist’s early works explore the pleasure of the domestic space, animating a cinematographer’s eye for drama and detail by lingering on the drapery of clothing or bed linens—the soft contours of the fabric alluding to flesh—along with informal portraits and partial nudes in repose. More recently, the artist has probed the language of luxury and its environs, honing in on glimpses of fine-dining, formalwear and other items to mine themes of consumerism and social exclusion. Rich textures such as flesh, hair, and cloth have become hallmarks of his paintings, but Ralaivao’s keen explorations into the formal qualities and aesthetic value of light have also captured the visual thrill of reflective materials such as patent leather, metal, and glassware—subjects with which the artist can demonstrate an instinctive touch for light’s technical representation. By building thinly layered brushstrokes and a respective luminosity, the artist imbues his painterly universe with a dreamlike quality.

Ralaivao lives and works in his home city of Rennes, France, after spending several years in Berlin. In 2022, he was profiled in The Artsy Vanguard. His work is held in institutional collections in the United States and abroad, including the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Musée des Beaux Arts de Rennes, France; Powerlong Museum, Shanghai, China; and the He Art Museum, China.

Portrait above: Rosa Lacavalla

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