Alexis Ralaivao

Born in 1991 in Rennes, Alexis Ralaivao is a young Franco-Malagasy figurative painter who questions the diversity in contemporary art. It was after working in museums and art galleries that Alexis Ralaivao, challenged by the under-representation of people of color, decided to make portraits of young blacks and mestizos using the techniques of the old masters. His militant approach, completed by his pictorial technique, results in striking works, both in their range of colors and in the details of the young faces immortalized. Passionate about drawing from an early age, he learned to master oil painting in a self-taught way by observing the canvases of his greatest inspirations: Ingres, Honthorst and Rembrandt but also contemporary painters like John Currin, Barkley Hendricks or again Kehinde Wiley. At 27, he embodies in his own way the paradox of a youth that oscillates between the era of instantaneity and the desire for memory. How to keep memories of youth at the time of ephemeral stories? Many of his models are actually screenshots (screenshots) of social media images meant to last only a few seconds or a few hours; on the contrary, he decided to perpetuate them using his brushes. Alexis Ralaivao's painting is an ode to youth, to diversity and to figurative painting.