Geoffroy Pithon

Q1. Please introduce yourself, focusing on the theme of your work and your working method. (You do not need to mention your exhibition history, education, or career.)

My name is Geoffroy Pithon, I’m 37 years old and I live in Nantes, France. I’m an artist, and I’ve found in painting on paper a way to embrace various fields of contemporary creation—ranging from large-scale immersive installations to smaller pieces, allowing me to work on the floor, on walls, at a table, both inside and outside the studio. 

With a background in graphic design, I first discovered painting by working directly on posters I printed as part of graphic commissions. Gradually, I moved away from the design framework to delve deeper into the pictorial potential of painting on paper, exploring a visual language primarily rooted in color and abstract expression.

Through these vivid “visions,” I aim to reveal a certain kind of energy—capturing the forms, landscapes, and objects that surround me or dwell within me.

Q2. Please describe the work(s) you will showcase at Kiaf SEOUL 2025.

The new body of work to be exhibited at Kiaf Seoul 2025 marks a return to a more generous and vibrant color palette, following a period dominated by red tones. The entire series was created in a single momentum, while I was reading Wild Boars’Cross the river by Zhan Guixing—a novel set in a small village in Borneo during World War II. The text is drenched in descriptions that could be described as magical realism, evoking the local flora and fauna in a narrative that is both fierce and dazzling: overripe fruits, fragrant trees, weathered parasols, mythological masks, lowland smoke, trinkets… all infused with a wild breath, a fragmented yet powerful maelstrom-like chant. The six paintings are undeniably steeped in this atmosphere— perhaps even charged with the same essence.

Q3. What is the most distinctive feature of your artwork that sets you apart from other artists?

My tools and materials are somewhat unconventional, especially in a context where painting is still largely dominated by oil on canvas. I create my own paints using pigment and acrylic binder, and I work on paper. The combination of this fast-drying paint and the smooth surface of coated paper allows for a wide range of textural effects—producing a matte finish, unexpected layering, and a mix of raw, gestural energy with the luminosity of richly pigmented material.

Working on paper also gives me the freedom to explore different applications of painting—from huge installations to scenographic kit, performative, or even in-situ and architectural works—making my practice versatile and multidisciplinary, and allowing me to make the most of these possibilities. My palette also includes a variety of vibrant hues, with fluorescent colors used sparingly and in balance, adding a particular energy to my abstract language. Having started out working on screen, I try to preserve an RGB-like visual quality in my work, which I find stimulating both physically and mentally.

Finally, I would say that my work is rooted in a modernist tradition, but with a consciously graphic approach. It is punctuated with recurring motifs that bring a detailed and contrasting dimension, where perspective and space are disrupted—yet still retain a sense of familiarity, inviting the viewer to re-inhabit the piece in their own way. As if a modern or Fauvist painting had passed through the filter of a digital screen and amplification, then been cut up or torn apart before being reassembled into a new composition. I find it exciting to question the legacy of painting in light of the challenges and innovations of contemporary creation.

Q4. Being a full-time artist is never easy. What are the biggest challenges you ever faced being an artist, and what keeps you motivated?

When I decided to become a full-time artist in 2021, I knew I had to make a bold statement. I chose to create a monumental work in an art center that had taken a chance on me, offering my first solo show despite my lack of precedent in this kind of large-scale installation. It was an intense process, filled with hard work and intellectual doubts, all while my wife was giving birth to our first child. That period was deeply intense on many levels—I was leaping into the unknown, artistically, professionally, and personally—with a mix of naïve freedom and a growing sense of responsibility.

I’ve always felt that art is not just a choice, but a vital necessity. In a way, artists are condemned to create, to keep pursuing a goal—even if that goal is often vague and elusive.

Q5. Do you have any future goals as an artist, and if so, what are they, and what subjects or materials are you currently interested in?

As an artist, my main drive is to keep progressing and continuously learning in order to push my visual language and my work toward the best it can be. I’m deeply interested in the spatial presentation of painting and in immersive aspects, which fuels my desire to explore new territories—particularly in terms of scale and monumentality.

I’m also fascinated by the narratives that emerge from the creative process itself, especially in relation to the possibilities offered by social media. These platforms open up new ways of sharing and disseminating my work, and I see them as an opportunity to generate unique, poetic images—almost as a culture of their own.

Q6. What kind of feelings, thoughts, or impressions do you hope to pass on to the audience through 2025 Kiaf HIGHLIGHTS?

I tend to believe that much of the pleasure I experience while making my paintings is encapsulated in their form—and then passed on to the viewer (whether public, collector, or visitor). This pleasure can be subtle, spiritual, and delicate, but also more down-to-earth—gustatory, vibrant, and dynamic. For me, painting has always been about the need to inhabit a space—one that can be both the site of a cosmic, ethereal celebration and in same time the table of a simple, generous meal.

 

The works of the 10 selected semi-finalists will be featured at each gallery’s booth on site.