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Bryan Ley was born in Lima, Peru in 1988. He arrived in the French city of Limoges at the age of 10 months, and still lives and works there.
From 2007 to 2010, he started to study the applied arts in Poitiers and then in 2010 and 2011 he was at the Van der Kelen Institut supérieur de peinture in Brussels. Finally in 2011-2012, he attended the Académie libre de la Grande Chaumière in Paris.
In 2017, Ley won the first prize in Painting of the Institut Bernard Magrez in Bordeaux.
His painting treats the human figure in an anonymous state which appears not to be searching for its identity but is rather seeking a reinvented world. Here the artist tends towards photographic realism, he is extremely meticulous in showing his figures. Ley manages to give these anonymous people their essence, a soul, while defending his figurative approach. There is no moral judgment in Bryan’s work. His work concerns human beings and human beings are at its heart. Refraining from any social or political criticisms, he chooses to allow only the paint to speak. Direct and penetrating painting, where anything can be included: melancholy, calm, liberty, anger, pain, concentration, nostalgia, dissatisfaction and expectation, in an infinite variety of combinations.
As Aristotle wrote: “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance; for this outward appearance and details do not constitute true reality”.
His recent work with materials such as cloth reveal his desire to promote the support. There is black, grey, white, but when colour appears, it is often in the form of stretched patterned cloth on which the artist has painted a face, a body or clothes. They seem to be emerging from the painted surface, although sometimes the whole body appears to be imprisoned in the cloth. Beyond this appearance, the use of light and shadow on the canvas is obvious to create an atmosphere at times tragic, even distressing, or sometimes calm and melancholic. Bryan Ley uses these contrasts. Against a neutral background, a scene can be lit like a theatre stage while the bodies remain folded in on themselves, stiff, inert, locked in their meditation. In most cases, the gaze is serious, the lips closed and yet a myriad of emotions invades you in a threatening tranquillity like a euphoria full of gentleness.
These young men and women posed like humanity marching towards an ineffable world, are they not the reflection of our society?
2021
« Peintures sur tissus », Consulate General of Peru, Paris
« Daydream », Les rendez-vous de la Chapelle, Le Dorat
2019
Galerie ARTSET, Limoges
2018
« Figure », Bernard Magrez Cultural Institute, Bordeaux
Galerie La Source, La Teste-de-Buch.
2016
« Peintures récentes », Chapelle de la Visitation, Limoges
2015
Galerie Rive Droite, Saint-Etienne
Galerie Mairie du 7ème arrondissement, Paris
Yohann Gallery, Paris
Galerie la Pavé d’Orsay, Paris
2014
« Entre noirs et blancs » Galerie du Crous, Beaux-Arts, Paris
2011
La Galerie, Limoges
Galerie Art Image, Limoges
2021
Axe Pérou-Bordeaux, Espace Saint-Rémi, Bordeaux
« Dixsemblables », Galerie des Hospices, Limoges Galerie Ysatis, Paris, Saint-Tropez
2020
« Le temps retrouvé », Association France Amérique Latine, Paris
« La nuit des plasticiens », SHAKERS residency, Montluçon
« L’art passe à table », Les Halles Centrales, Limoges
2019
Malamegi Lab Art Prize, Piazza di Pietra Art Gallery, Roma
Espace culturel Laurentine Teillet, Saint-Junien
Biennale des artistes du secours populaire, Limoges
2018
Galerie Ysatis, Paris
« Trajectoires et déplacements » Biennial of Contemporary art, Cachan
2017
« Never give up ». Grand Prix Bernard Magrez, Château Labottière, Bordeaux
Biennale des artistes du secours populaire, Limoges
2016
Salon d’Automne, Champs-Élysées/Concorde, Paris
Galerie des Hospices, Limoges Art3f, Brussels
2015
Comparaisons, groupe existentiel et sociétal (curator : Christel Valentin), Grand Palais, Paris MAC Paris, Paris
Sm’Art, Aix-en-Provence
2014
Centre culturel et communal, Pierrefitte-sur-seine
2013
MAC Paris, Paris
2012
La galerie, Limoges
Bernard Magrez private collection, Bordeaux
2017: 1st painting Prize, Bernard Magrez Institute, Bordeaux
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