Bio

I am a French contemporary painter based in Paris. I have spent significant time between South Korea and the French Alps, near the Swiss border. The intense and cosmopolitan energy of Seoul and the wilderness and majestic nature of the Alps have informed my art practice. In my work I explore the boundary between reality and imagination through a visual language drawing on influences such as Renaissance painting, traditional Korean art, skateboard culture, Post-Impressionism, and Surrealism. I am currently represented by Casa Das Peritas Gallery. My work has been exhibited in galleries in the US and Europe and belongs to private collections worlwide.

Statement

Nico Pearleyes’ practice is based on a questioning on the very nature of reality and what makes it intelligible and “known”. Is there really a world “out there,” as if our eyes were mere windows? Or is what we call reality a collective experience shaped by ideas and representations inherited from society? As humans, we hold an immense poetic freedom: to redefine reality, to create it within us, in our hearts and minds, to give it meaning through our thoughts and feelings. Art plays a vital role in this exchange as it is the tool that allows us to reshape the meaning of the world at every instant.

A melody, a dance gesture, a set of colors, a set of words can awaken sensations we never knew. They reveal hidden spaces in us, where consciousness expands and the world feels renewed—like leaving the cinema and seeing our city with fresh eyes, still touched by the film’s atmosphere.

If, as Proust suggests, true discovery lies in how we look at things, then we have a freedom to poetically redefine reality itself. Just as science uncovers hidden aspects of the world, art allows us to transform the “known,” not the things themselves but the meaning we give them. By opening us to feelings we cannot reach alone, the arts expand our capacity to live differently. They create inner spaces where change becomes possible.

Exploring these idea, Nico Pearleyes’ paintings often depict surrealist landscapes, symbolic animals, and unfamiliar atmospheres, probing the ways we represent reality and nature, and how these representations affect us in return. These visual elements enable him to question narratives, shift perspectives, and construct worlds that blur the line between the known and the unknown. Through this playful exploration, Nico Pearleyes invites viewers to reflect on our capacity to recognize our own outlook on reality—and on our freedom to redefine our experience of it.