Biography

Cyprien Gaillard's work navigates geographical sites and psychological states, addressing the relationship between architecture and nature, and evolution and erosion. Using a variety of artistic mediums ranging from painting and sculpture to photography, film, and video, Gaillard juxtaposes pictorial beauty and the atmospherically lush with elements of sudden violence, destruction, and idiosyncrasy culled from popular culture, pointing to the precarious nature of public space, social ritual, and the very viability of the notion of civilization. Combining minimal composition, a romantic visual sensibility, and a youthful, anarchic spirit, Gaillard's work displays a personal vision or reading of landscapes and cities, whether he trains his gaze upon land art sites, crumbling 1960s urban high-rises, culturally entrenched logos, explosive building demolition procedures, or public monuments. He invests these sites with new traits through his interventions, resulting in architectural travelogues dense with layers of suggestive symbols, as well as an incisive examination of the foundations and inventions of civilizations, both ancient and modern, revealing their simultaneously seductive and alienating features.