Meet the Artists
ISAO, born Isao Llorens Ishikawa, is a Catalan artist living in in Spain. After studying in Paris, Isao left for Japan in a bid to connect with his motherly roots. It was during this Japanese stay, indeed, that he perfected his calligraphic and paper studies, which give his work a very particular pictorial profile. Upon his return to Paris, and his later move to Barcelona, ISAO explores, through the lens of a kaleidoscope, the many perceptions of the same concept. Paintings, sculptures, illustrations, designs, animations and films… between figuration and abstraction, under a reductionism that borders on the limits of simplification, ISAO combines saturated colours and minimalist forms in order to study serially kaleidoscopic views and perceptions of the same concept. ISAO treats with ingenuity and dexterity the nature and all those creatures cohabiting in it. This well-travelled artist, who constantly strives for regeneration, has launched several projects that are stamped with his touch and personality. ISAO is currently the Director of the Fundació J. Llorens Artigas based in Gallifa (Barcelona), a rural artists’ centre with studios built in honour of his grandfather Llorens Artigas, the ceramist who worked very closely with Joan Miró on many of his projects.
Gayle Chong Kwan is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist and academic whose work is exhibited internationally in galleries and the public realm. Her large-scale photographic works, immersive installations, and sensory ritual events operate within and against histories of oppression and positions the viewer as one element in a cosmology of the political, social and ecological. Exhibitions include: ‘The Taotie’, Compton Verney, UK (2024); ‘A Pocket Full of Sand’, John Hansard Gallery, UK (2024); ‘Waste Archipelago’, Venice (2021); ‘Wastescape’, Auckland, New Zealand (2019); ‘The People’s Forest’, William Morris Gallery (2018); ‘Anthropo-scene’, Bloomberg Space, UK (2015); ‘Wastescape’, Southbank Centre, UK (2012); ‘The Obsidian Isle’, New Forest Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale (2011); ‘Cockaigne’, Tales from the New World, 10th Havana Biennial, Cuba (2009). Artist Fellowship, Sloane Lab and the British Museum, UK (2023); Artist in Residence in Photography at the V&A (2019–2021); Artist Fellowship, Ca’ Foscari University Venice (2020-21), as winner of the Sustainable Art Prize (2019). She has a PhD in Fine Art on ‘Imaginal Travel’ from the Royal College of Art, UK (2023).
American Stephanie Blake lives in Paris and is an illustrator and author of children’s books. In 2002 she created Simon Super Rabbit, which was published by l’École des Loisirs and translated into numerous languages before being adapted into a cartoon in 2016. Since 2018, Stephanie Blake has been creating clay sculptures that she immortalizes in bronze, Indian ink sketches on Japanese paper, and large coloured canvases. Beneath their crude, naive and spontaneous exteriors, Stephanie Blake’s works paradoxically reveal a delicate, poetic… even obvious side. A polyvalent and versatile artist, her practice includes sculptures in ceramics and bronze, small- and large-scale paintings and jewellery. As per the writing, Stephanie is not only author of children’s books, but she also recently embraced narratives for adults with a novel that will be officially released in January 2025.
Didier Guillon is the descendant of illustrious ancestors, including the sculptor Alphonse Lamy and the collector and art dealer Charles Sedelmeyer. Creating is an irresistible impulse, spurred by his inextinguishable curiosity. He muses through many mediums, such as serigraphy, illustration, cardboard-made or glass sculptures, with a particular fondness for mixed-media installations. Guillon's installations show a commitment to sustainability: made from environmentally friendly materials, much of his artwork is destroyed for recycling after traveling around the world for solo shows. A Venetian resident for more than a year, Guillon loves his city through and through. A complete care which emerges, among other things, in his desire to work with local artisans. Since 2013, the artist has been deeply fascinated by the precious traditions that make up the identity of Murano glassmaking; he has been producing works of art in collaboration with renowned local master glassmakers ever since. Not only glass: Guillon’s latest creations are produced together with local craftsmen. Bronze and brass are the materials which recently brought his research to imagine new shapes, now part of the artist’s well-known repertoire. New experiments, then, always faithful to the heritage of Donald Judd and the American Minimalists so dear to Guillon, leading the artist to conceive imposing yet delicate cubist metamorphosis.
French painter Yves Lévêque, a key artist in the collection of Fondation Valmont, symbolises the emotional link between the Guillon family and art. Like his father Claude, Didier Guillon quickly fell in love with Lévêque’s real, yet dreamlike, landscapes. This relationship still endures, with Didier’s son Maxence at the head of Fondation Valmont.
Maxence has been immersed in art since early childhood, and amongst the works he learnt to admire were some by this French painter, who has always been part of the
Guillon family history. Lévêque has always felt the need to be close to nature and the land, to this countryside where he chose to live in preference to the chaotic atmosphere of Paris. His broad brush strokes bring to mind vast landscapes, immense skies and fi elds of wheat, disturbed only by the presence of birds, symbols of poetry and freedom. Lévêque liked to
run and ran every day – he needed to get some fresh air, he would say, to fl y like the birds in his paintings.
Maxence has been immersed in art since early childhood, and amongst the works he learnt to admire were some by this French painter, who has always been part of the
Guillon family history. Lévêque has always felt the need to be close to nature and the land, to this countryside where he chose to live in preference to the chaotic atmosphere of Paris. His broad brush strokes bring to mind vast landscapes, immense skies and fi elds of wheat, disturbed only by the presence of birds, symbols of poetry and freedom. Lévêque liked to
run and ran every day – he needed to get some fresh air, he would say, to fl y like the birds in his paintings.
While traditional gardens are often designed to show man’s imposition of order over the chaos of nature, Jane Le Besque’s work breaks through conventional limits to reveal the subtle complexity and inventiveness of nature permitted the freedom to express itself. She frequently encourages her imaginary forms to escape the boundaries of the frame and the flatness of the painted surface. Never predictable, her work always surprises, deftly stimulates the imagination and is irreverently playful. Above all, she focuses on the exquisite elements that compose nature’s fragile beauty. She leads us to see and appreciate these subtle aspects of nature that are at risk of vanishing in the fast changing climate of an overcrowded world under increasing stress.
Son of the ceramist and collaborator of Miró and Picasso, Josep Llorens Artigas, Joan Gardy Artigas was born in 1938 and received his artistic education in Paris, where he studied at the Ecole du Louvre and the Ecole des Beaux Arts. His style was forged through contact with the Parisian artistic life where he worked with Giacometti, Braque and Chagall. Artigas spent twenty years collaborating with Joan Miró, taking over from his father who was unable to continue his art due to age, and created numerous ceramic walls with the artist. He later designed fountains, buildings and also practiced engraving and lithography.
Bénédicte Blanc-Fontenille is a French artist living and working in Miami. Her work is based on the concept of fragility.
My work is a reflection on the fragility of human beings and human things. This fragility appears to me as an energy, a driving force that gives human beings the strength to move forward; it engenders movement, and life is nothing other than movement. It's the thing that's buried and the thing that's visible, it's the demolition that calls for reconstruction, it's the fold that needs to be unfolded to access knowledge, to realize itself.
There is nothing definitive or permanent, but there is rebirth. That's why this movement is like a succession of moments.
“Time has only one reality, that of the moment” wrote G. Bachelard. It seems to me that each of my works could be called “moment” or “passage”, with all the vulnerability these words contain.
In my work, lines, colors, stones, architecture or human silhouettes become witnesses to the fleetingness of the present moment, in which the projection of the future is reflected.
My work is a reflection on the fragility of human beings and human things. This fragility appears to me as an energy, a driving force that gives human beings the strength to move forward; it engenders movement, and life is nothing other than movement. It's the thing that's buried and the thing that's visible, it's the demolition that calls for reconstruction, it's the fold that needs to be unfolded to access knowledge, to realize itself.
There is nothing definitive or permanent, but there is rebirth. That's why this movement is like a succession of moments.
“Time has only one reality, that of the moment” wrote G. Bachelard. It seems to me that each of my works could be called “moment” or “passage”, with all the vulnerability these words contain.
In my work, lines, colors, stones, architecture or human silhouettes become witnesses to the fleetingness of the present moment, in which the projection of the future is reflected.
The Venetian artist Silvano Rubino studied at the Accademia di Belli Arte in Venice before leaving for Brazil where he held numerous exhibitions and installa-tions between 1989 and 1996.
With an initial formation including painting and Renaissance iconography, the artist quickly developed an interest in Expressionism.
An artist of rare multidisciplinarity, Silvano Rubino prac-tices many artistic disciplines such as photography, writ-ing and scenography. The synthesis of these different dis-ciplines allows him to create artworks and installations of a rare poetry.
With an initial formation including painting and Renaissance iconography, the artist quickly developed an interest in Expressionism.
An artist of rare multidisciplinarity, Silvano Rubino prac-tices many artistic disciplines such as photography, writ-ing and scenography. The synthesis of these different dis-ciplines allows him to create artworks and installations of a rare poetry.
Voyage Within, 2019, was their very first exhibition as an artistic duo, Vangelis Kyris and Anatoli Georgiev have approached costume traditions from around the world in their own unique manner. When the National Historical Museum in Athens entrusted them with the authentic garments of its collection to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Greek Revolution, the two artists realised their vision by creating a new visual world between photography and embroidery. In recent years their work has been supported by a series of state and private institutions, particularly by the George & Victoria Karelia Foundation, the Anastasios G. Leventis Foundation, the Embassy of Greece in Seoul, the Anthony E. Comninos Foundation, Fondation Valmont, the Embassy of Greece in Sofia, and the Marianna V. Vardinoyannis Foundation. The Museum of ancient Eleutherna in Crete, the Acropolis Museum and the Palazzo Bonvicini in Venice have hosted their exhibitions, while the National Bulgarian Ethnographic Museum in Sofia will host new exhibitions. The mixed media artworks of Kyris and Georgiev combine photography with embroidery to create something truly unique in the contemporary art world. Their portraits in the Acropolis Museum exhibition reference history, ethnography, fashion, and museum treasures. In addition to costume tradition, the artists also employ the theatrical expression of women and men who stand in front of Vangelis Kyris’ lens dressed in the authentic garments of past centuries. The portraits are then printed on 100% cotton canvas, where Anatoli Georgiev uses his needle to create subtle details using golden, silver, metal, silk, and cotton threads. Owing to textile art, embroidery now holds a special position among contemporary art forms, while in the portraits of Kyris and Georgiev, it dynamically converses with contemporary photography.
Carles Valverde is a Catalan artist born in 1965 and living in Switzerland for almost 30 years, after a period of several years spent on the island of Mallorca. He trained at the Llotja School of Applied Arts in Barcelona and was inspired by the works of Eduardo Chillida, Richard Serra and Max Bill.
Carles Valverde considers himself a sculptor, but his practices may embrace painting as well. He likes to combine the diversity of parts and the unity of the whole. From monumental pieces in metal to paintings, from drawings to installations: harmony must be found in everything. Minimal and linear forms characterize his universe to the fullest. Defined as a builder of space, the artist remains faithful to his style, described as austere, but also enjoys experimenting with materials and techniques. He offers animated and playful installations that provide an extension in space and time as well as static sculptures.
In Switzerland, his creations can be found at EPFL, Bex & Arts, the Louis Moret Foundation, and in several galleries and private collections. He also participates in exhibitions in Spain, Poland and Germany and, since spring 2018, at the Château de Vullierens.
Carles Valverde considers himself a sculptor, but his practices may embrace painting as well. He likes to combine the diversity of parts and the unity of the whole. From monumental pieces in metal to paintings, from drawings to installations: harmony must be found in everything. Minimal and linear forms characterize his universe to the fullest. Defined as a builder of space, the artist remains faithful to his style, described as austere, but also enjoys experimenting with materials and techniques. He offers animated and playful installations that provide an extension in space and time as well as static sculptures.
In Switzerland, his creations can be found at EPFL, Bex & Arts, the Louis Moret Foundation, and in several galleries and private collections. He also participates in exhibitions in Spain, Poland and Germany and, since spring 2018, at the Château de Vullierens.