Self-taught, French artist Pierre Fava explores the dialectic of materiality and immateriality in his bold paintings. Neither entirely abstract nor fully conceptual, Fava’s work draws inspiration from both art historical traditions. His paintings have formal affinities with those of European Informel artists such as Pierre Soulages and American Abstract Expressionists like Franz Kline; and have their ancestry in the kind of work made famous by Jean-Paul Riopelle.

Fava’s compellingly powerful paintings focus on the material of paint itself and the light that reflects off the surface of the canvas. Although some of the artist’s works are seemingly devoid of content, others reference both the gesture of the artist’s hand and the iconography of death and disease. Many paintings, even those that incorporate color, center on the color black with all its attendant symbolic meanings and metaphorical connotations. Born to Corsican parents in 1979 in Toulon, France, Fava left his family to follow his own path, eventually leading him to his current residence in Marseille.