FRÉDÉRIC GALLIANO

Born in Grenoble in 1969, Frédéric Galliano lives and works in Valence and Paris. After graduating from the Valence art school (École de Sculpture) in southern France in 1992, he immediately set up his own studio. For two years, the artist continued the work he had begun a few months before graduating. It was during this time that he discovered the world of clubbing, dj-ing, electronic music and, in particular, New York house. Completely impressed by this innovative, fresh, socially underground and avant-garde music, the artist found a relevant creativity in it.

Throwing himself into music by becoming a full-time dj for a year, he then acquired a new studio, computer, sampler and mixer to start working as a producer. His first track, “Denice” on the What’s Up-Mix-it label, was quickly noticed and he was signed by the most creative and important electronic music label of the time: F Communications. His debut album “Espaces Baroques” earned him an international reputation as an unprecedented blend of jazz, live music and electronic work.

ollowing his success, Frédéric Galliano embarked on years of world touring, while at the same time producing a dozen albums of contemporary African acoustic music on his own label, Frikyiwa. In 2012, he took the bold decision to return to the world of contemporary art, immediately starting to produce again as a sculptor. Part of this practice, as a “producer”, is curating exhibitions. Between 2013 and 2021, the artist organized some twenty exhibitions at Vitrine-65 gallery in Paris.

In his first exhibition at Galerie Valérie Eymeric, in 2022, Frédéric Galliano presented “Espaces baroques – Ondoiements”, plunging us into a Baroque universe of movement, undulation and drama. Watercolors in cloudy, tormented hues, sculptures bubbling and tumultuous, these works are definitively rooted in references to Borromini and Rubens. The drawings and sculptures borrow from this period the most striking features of this revival: flamboyance, movement, swirls and chiaroscuro redefine Frédéric Galliano’s works in a dizzying register where monads – his point of reference for the past 20 years – unexpectedly come alive in convolutions and magmas.

For her second exhibition at Galerie Valérie Eymeric, in 2024, the artist showed us her domes. Always drawn from the spirit of Baroque spaces, the works are cut in the manner of shaped canvases, and seem to fly off the walls…

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