ENCHANTED MIRROR
In dialogue with François Malingrëy
FVTVRIST Magazine // Interview by Elina P.
9 April 2026
FVTVRIST meets François Malingrëy on the occasion of his presentation at Art Paris with the gallery Paris B, where he introduces a new body of work conceived as a tightly held narrative. Produced over an intense four-month period, the series tells its story through repetition and slight shifts. Like a fractal or an enchanted mirror, the paintings reflect the same figures, again and again, never quite identically.
There is always this mesmerizing sense of disturbance in his work, that could easily be compared to vertigo, to disorientation, something close to what we experience in sleep. The eye tries to catch the story, to hold it in place, but it keeps slipping. Highly intentional placements of light and shadows, bodies held in uneasy, suspended positions, everything moves away from realism, even as the technique approaches a form of almost photographic precision.
We spoke with the artist about this series, the new ideas it brought, its density, surrounded by his canvases in his new studio at POUSH.
Art Paris Exhibition View © galerie Paris B
Let’s start from what’s coming nextyour projects ahead. You’re preparing a series something for Art Paris with the gallery Paris B, right?
Yes. I’m working on a series for Art Paris. What matters for me here is really that it is a series. Alike the exhibition we showed at Paris-B before recently, that was very different. For that show, the works span about two years, but not in a continuous way: there were other exhibitions in between, interruptions. It remains a body of work that unfolded over that time, but there wasn’t really the idea of building a coherent whole. It was more about shifting from one work to another, each time differently.
Whereas for Art Paris, what we’re showing is much more of a corpus.
So this time, there’s a narrative that becomes clear when we see the paintings together?
Exactly. Each painting can function on its own, but there’s always a slight uncertainty around meaning. When you bring them together, something clarifies. They start responding to each other.
Another thing that’s quite particular is that everything was produced in a very short time, in only four months. I’m not going to hide it, it was a lot of work, done in a very condensed way. The paintings really echo and continue one another. The process started with photography andI used the same series of shots I took across all the paintings.
And how do you choose the people you portray? And if you know your models well, how do you deal with that emotional attachment in your work—does it add something, or does it sometimes get in the way?
I often know my models, but in a way I choose them by not choosing or by trying to avoid that moment of decision. Because as soon as I start choosing, I’ll choose for how they look, for their
physical attributes… and that’s not really what I’m after.
So it becomes much simpler to just work with people who are close. They’re there, they’re available, I can paint them. It removes that layer of intention, or at least it shifts it somewhere else.
It’s mostly my family: my daughter, my niece. They’re very close, and even in the photographs, something happens that I don’t have to force. With them, I don’t need to construct the image in the same way, it’s already there, somehow. A
nd then, sometimes, there are more deliberate choices, like the dog. That one I chose very consciously, for how it looks. I wanted something a bit rough, almost like a surface… like a car body, in a way.
So there’s always this tension between something that comes from proximity, from what’s already there and moments where I reintroduce a more formal, almost compositional choice.
François Malingrëy, Exhibition view, PARIS-B, 2026 ©Théo Baulig
So there’s something very instinctive in that, but at times also very precise.
Yes. And at the same time, maybe this idea of “not choosing” is a bit of a shortcut. Because over time, I’ve developed habits with certain figures. There’s a kind of continuity that installs itself, almost without me deciding it, a narrative that builds on its own.
For example, I’ve been painting my nephew since he was a baby. At some point, he’s no longer just a model, he becomes part of the work. But now I’m starting to question that. I feel that sometimes the proximity between very personal things and the painting becomes a bit too direct… almost too visible.
Almost like your own projections slipping into the image?
Yes, but what’s strange is that I’m not aware of it when I’m painting. I only see it afterwards, sometimes much later.
So I’m starting to think about introducing some distance, not by removing the connection, that’s impossible, but maybe by shifting it. For example, by repeating the same figure within a painting, it dilutes the individuality. Because even then, something always remains, you can’t escape that completely.
So instead of trying to eliminate it, I think I try to transform it to the point, where it’s no longer really about who the person is. It becomes more about what they embody: an age, a presence… almost something like an archetype.
Art Paris Exhibition View © galerie Paris B
There’s also something striking in the way your scenes feel constructed, almost deliberately artificial. Is it intentional?
The scenes don’t exist. And it’s important. The light is often inconsistent, the perspective doesn’t hold. But that’s because I’m not trying to recreate a real space. I’m using perspective as a tool to build the image. If I followed a realistic logic, it wouldn’t look like that at all. The scale would shift, the angles would change… but I ignore that.
Because what interests me is precisely to show that it’s constructed. That there’s an intention behind it. It’s not about translating something observed, it’s about staging something.
You can place these very constructed scenes next to something much simpler, almost like a portrait.
And even in those, there’s still something at play, but it’s more subtle. What matters is really the relation between the images. Seeing them together changes how you read each one.
And working in series allows these staged scenes to enter into dialogue?
You can place these very constructed scenes next to something much simpler, almost like a portrait. And even in those, there’s still something at play, but it’s more subtle. What matters is really the relation between the images. Seeing them together changes how you read each one.
If we talk about mortality, the presence of the body already carries that. Because as soon
as there is a body, there is also the possibility
of its disappearance.
There’s a strong presence of art history in your work, but at the same time, you seem to destabilize it. There’s this tension between something very classical and something that slips away. How do you approach that?
It’s not really something I can choose to step outside of. Painting comes with that history, it’s already there. Even if you try to avoid it, it shapes how you see, how you build an image. What remains in the end is more like a trace—something in the structure, maybe in the drapery—but it’s no longer a direct reference. It’s more like something that has been absorbed, then displaced.
And it also pushed me technically. I had to work with glazes, which I almost never do. Usually I work in a single layer, very directly. But here, that wasn’t enough.
So I had to find another way. And that’s interesting, because even when you feel settled in a technique, it doesn’t mean it will take you where you need to go. You have to keep testing things, adjusting, letting go of certain habits. And in those moments, you really feel like a beginner again—which, in a way, is quite necessary.
You often insert yourself into the paintings. What role does the self-portrait play?
Sometimes it’s only pragmatic: I’m in the studio, I’m alone, I need a model. But there are moments where it takes on another meaning.
I made a piece with an automaton - a figure pulling another figure. And for it to function, it needed someone to activate it.
That became me. At that moment, I was questioning quite directly why I make art, what it’s for. And the piece became something like a Sisyphus figure - you go back to the work every day, you push, you continue. Not necessarily because it makes sense, but because that’s what you do.
Would you like to come back to this and push further into performance or staging?
Yes, it’s something that really interests me. Painting remains central, there’s no doubt about that. But I’m aware it’s not the only way to express things. Installation, performance, even something closer to theatrical staging—these are things I’d like to explore.
But they require something else. Space, people, context. Whereas painting is very direct: you go to the studio, you work. That simplicity is something I’m very attached to. And it’s also what sometimes makes the other forms more difficult to engage with.
François Malingrëy, Exhibition view, PARIS-B, 2026 ©Théo Baulig
Talking about simplicity, for your last exhibition at Paris B, there was no title. Was that intentional?
Absolutely, because the works weren’t conceived as a whole. There wasn’t a strong enough coherence between them. So adding a title would have felt a bit forced—like imposing something that wasn’t really there.
And more broadly, what is your relationship to titles, to the letter?
Sometimes a title can really add something. Especially when it opens another way of reading the image, shifts it slightly.
For example, if something feels very harsh, a title can bring it somewhere else, or soften it. But there are also times when nothing comes naturally. And then it becomes more functional, logistical almost, you just need to name the work.
There’s something in your work that can feel quite intense, almost touching on mortality. Is that something you think about?
Not really. Or at least not consciously. Very often I feel like I’ve made something quite soft. And then later, with some distance, I realize there’s something harder in it.
But that complexity, the fact that the image holds multiple layers, isn’t it something you’re looking for?
Yes and no. If you want the image to stay open, to allow different readings, then it has to contain different things, even tensions. If we talk about mortality, the presence of the body already carries that. Because as soon as there is a body, there is also the possibility of its disappearance. But at the same time, painting flesh is about life. It’s about making something feel inhabited. For me, that’s essential.
Some goes to the clothing, I often keep reduced, neutral. It’s my way of showing the body without making nudity the subject. I try to push that aside, to make it disappear as a question. Because it’s not what the painting is about.
But it could become something to explore at some point.
Just… not right now.
About François Malingrëy
(Source: Paris B)
François Malingrëy’s work takes the human body as its primary stage. In a taut hyperrealism, exposed flesh becomes the arena where ancestral passions are replayed: desire and guilt, gentleness and violence, brotherhood and rivalry. Anchored in an apparently ordinary setting, these scenes are traversed by an intensity that verges on the liturgical. Reality expands into something grand, as if the figures were caught mid- aria, at the very moment when intimate drama takes on an almost mystical dimension.
Born in 1989, François Malingrëy graduated from the École des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg in 2013. In 2015, he participated in the 60th Salon de Montrouge and received the Prix du Conseil Général des Hauts-de-Seine. His work has since been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, the Palais de Tokyo, the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature (Paris), the Museo Villa dei Cedri (Bellinzona, Switzerland), and the Fondation Pierre et Poppy Salinger (Le Thor, France).
About Théo Viardin
François Malingrëy’s work takes the human body as its primary stage. In a taut hyperrealism, exposed flesh becomes the arena where ancestral passions are replayed: desire and guilt, gentleness and violence, brotherhood and rivalry. Anchored in an apparently ordinary setting, these scenes are traversed by an intensity that verges on the liturgical. Reality expands into something grand, as if the figures were caught mid- aria, at the very moment when intimate drama takes on an almost mystical dimension.
Born in 1989, François Malingrëy graduated from the École des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg in 2013. In 2015, he participated in the 60th Salon de Montrouge and received the Prix du Conseil Général des Hauts-de-Seine. His work has since been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, the Palais de Tokyo, the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature (Paris), the Museo Villa dei Cedri (Bellinzona, Switzerland), and the Fondation Pierre et Poppy Salinger (Le Thor, France).
(Source: Paris B)
