Alexis Ralaivao

Alexis Ralaivao (b. 1991, Rennes, France)

Alexis Ralaivao’s intimate, diaristic oil paintings combine classical traditions with a distinctly contemporary sensibility. Drawing on Old Master techniques associated with 17th-century Dutch painting and its meticulous attention to fabric and surface, his work is marked by a precise and attentive gaze, capturing fleeting gestures and lending them both immediacy and a sense of timelessness. The paintings that emerge draw out the emotional depth of everyday scenes, inviting sustained looking and fostering a sense of intimacy, at once revealing and withholding.

In his latest body of work, Ralaivao works in vivid, saturated colour. This marks a significant departure from his earlier, predominantly monochromatic paintings, in which colour appeared only in muted pastel tones. Bold blocks of colour come to the fore, reflecting the influence of Swiss painter Félix Vallotton, alongside minimalist artists including Ellsworth Kelly, Suzan Frecon and Robert Mangold, for whom colour operates as a fundamental compositional element.

Alexis Ralaivao lives and works in his home city of Rennes, France, after spending several years in Berlin. 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.