Author: jmarcm

An exceptional exhibition at Elysia Gallery

From March 5 to 25, 2026, Elysia Gallery in Paris presents a solo exhibition dedicated to Dutch painter Nard Kwast, a major figure in contemporary classical painting. Located in the heart of the Marais district, the gallery showcases a selection of remarkable works that demonstrate the vitality and relevance of painting inspired by the Old Masters.

This Paris art exhibition stands out as a must-see event for enthusiasts of classical art, figurative painting, and traditional painting techniques. A preview by appointment will be available starting March 3, 2026, followed by the opening reception on March 5 from 6 pm to 9 pm.

Nard Kwast, a contemporary painter in the lineage of the 17th-century Masters

Born in 1973, Nard Kwast works within the tradition of the great 17th-century masters. His approach is not nostalgic but demonstrative: classical painting remains a distinctly contemporary language when carried out with a high level of technical rigor.

Through an in-depth study of historical processes, the artist has mastered the fundamentals of classical painting:

• glazing and layered paint application
• chiaroscuro
• extreme precision of textures
• orchestration of light

Each work reveals meticulous attention to detail, where the pictorial material brings objects, faces, and atmospheres to life.

A contemporary classical painting exhibition in Paris

The exhibition brings together ambitious compositions, including the monumental oil painting Jakob zegent de zonen van Jozef , along with still lifes and portraits. The works on display demonstrate Nard Kwast’s ability to create striking pictorial illusion: every skin appears to breathe, every object seems tangible, and every shadow tells a silent story.

This figurative painting exhibition in Paris is aimed at collectors as well as art history and traditional technique enthusiasts. It highlights a rare artistic practice grounded in technical mastery and aesthetic rigor.

An artist recognized on the international stage

Nard Kwast is gaining increasing recognition on the international art scene. He notably appeared in Dutch television programs dedicated to the Old Masters, participating in the reconstruction of a lost Vermeer in the program De Nieuwe Vermeer, in dialogue with experts from the Rijksmuseum.

In 2024, he received the Award for Exceptional Technique at the prestigious Salmagundi Club in New York, confirming his status as an outstanding artist in the field of contemporary classical painting.

Why visit this art exhibition in Paris in 2026?

Visiting the Nard Kwast exhibition at Elysia Gallery offers a unique opportunity to:

• discover a contemporary master of classical painting
• admire works of remarkable technical virtuosity
• explore the dialogue between pictorial tradition and contemporary creation
• experience a major artistic event in Paris in March 2026

Practical information: Nard Kwast exhibition in Paris

Venue: Elysia Gallery
13 rue d’Ormesson, 75004 Paris (Le Marais)

Dates: March 5–25, 2026
Preview: By appointment from March 3, 2026
Opening reception: Thursday, March 5, 2026, 6 pm – 9 pm

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FAQ – Nard Kwast Exhibition in Paris 2026

From February 12 to April 11, 2026, Galerie Paris-B presents its first solo exhibition dedicated to François Malingrëy. A striking immersion into contemporary figurative painting, where the body becomes the site of a drama that is at once intimate, mythological, and pictorial.

On the walls of Paris-B, bodies never pose. They fall, support one another, collide, cling. InFrançois Malingrëy’s work, painting is a silent theater in which every gesture seems suspended at the precise moment when everything might tip over. The exhibition at Paris-B brings together a group of recent paintings that confirm the singularity of an artist for whom the body is less a subject than a true dramaturgical space.

The Body as a Theater of Contemporary Drama

In a taut, almost suffocating hyperrealism, François Malingrëy places his figures within settings that appear ordinary at first glance. Yet very quickly, the everyday begins to fracture. Exposed flesh, offered torsos, absent or defiant gazes transform the scene into a space charged with archaic tensions: desire and guilt, fraternity and rivalry, tenderness and violence.

The large group compositions function like choreographic scores. Awkward lifts, struggles, falls, and ambiguous embraces form a gestural vocabulary in which everything seems restrained, on the verge of collapse. Positioned at the level of the bodies, the viewer is drawn into the painting, caught within a narrative that always partly unfolds offstage.

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A Painting Nourished by the Memory of the Masters

While François Malingrëy’s work is deeply contemporary, it constantly dialogues with the history of painting. Misty distances evoke the sfumato of the Italian Renaissance, while extended bodies, open arms, and offered torsos reactivate the gravity of Christ-like figures, from Rogier van der Weyden to Velázquez.

The light, inherited from Baroque chiaroscuro, sculpts volumes with an almost liturgical precision. Yet here, quotation is never literal. It functions as a parallel montage between ancient iconography and our present visual culture, as if the great foundational narratives were returning to haunt our contemporary scenes.

A Body of Work Between Myth, Family, and Human Tragedy

In Malingrëy’s paintings, the family often becomes the site of primordial conflict. Through a limited number of characters, replayed from canvas to canvas, the great human frescoes unfold: wounded loyalty, jealousy, attachment, and betrayal. The myth of Abel and Cain, the Passion of Christ, and figures of martyrdom surface, displaced within a naturalistic framework that renders their violence all the more unsettling.

At times, the painter’s own silhouette appears—discreet, almost tutelary. A nod to the tradition of old masters who inserted themselves into their compositions, reminding us that here a guiding consciousness is at work, organizing the light and holding the thread of the narrative.

François Malingrëy, a Distinctive Figure in Contemporary Figurative Painting

Born in 1989 and a graduate of the Strasbourg School of Decorative Arts, François Malingrëy quickly established himself on the French and European institutional scenes. A prizewinner at the Salon de Montrouge, he has exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, and the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, among others.

With this first solo exhibition at Paris-B, the artist confirms a demanding and dense body of work, in which each painting functions as an open stage— a place where the present of bodies and the memory of painting overlap.

Practical Information

François Malingrëy
Galerie Paris-B
62 rue de Turbigo, 75003 Paris
February 12 – April 11, 2026
Opening reception: Thursday, February 12, 2026, 6–9 pm

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FAQ François Malingrëy

From 4 November 2025 to 22 February 2026, the Petit Palais – Museum of Fine Arts of the City of Paris presents the first French retrospective devoted to Pekka Halonen (1865–1933).

Entitled Pekka Halonen. A Hymn to Finland, this exceptional exhibition, organized in partnership with the Ateneum Art Museum – Finnish National Gallery (Helsinki), brings together more than 130 works from Finnish public and private collections.

👉 A rare immersion at the heart of the golden age of Finnish painting, amid snow, silence, and the quest for identity.

Painting Finland: art, resistance, and modernity

At the dawn of the 20th century, Finland was under Russian rule. In this tense political context, painting became a cultural and symbolic act.

Halonen’s work is rooted in National Romanticism and Karelianism, movements that celebrate landscapes, rural traditions, and founding myths.
His participation in the Paris World’s Fair, within the Finnish pavilion, marked a turning point: painting as a manifesto of identity.

👉 Deep forests, frozen lakes, peasant scenes: each canvas becomes a fragment of collective memory.

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Painting Finland, between identity and modernity

Pekka Halonen’s work belongs to the lineage of National Romanticism and Karelianism, artistic movements that exalt Finnish landscapes and traditions against a backdrop of political tension with Russian rule.

In 1900, his participation in the Paris World’s Fair, within the Finnish pavilion, took on major symbolic significance for the affirmation of Finnish national identity.

His paintings thus became true visual manifestos, celebrating wild nature, rural life, and the cultural resistance of a people.

Pekka Halonen, Tomatoes, 1913. Oil on cardboard, 51 × 42 cm. Helsinki, Ateneum Art Museum. © Finnish National Gallery / Jenni Nurminen

Halosenniemi: living and painting in harmony with nature

Far from the bustle of Paris, Pekka Halonen chose to settle in Tuusula, on the shores of a lake. There he built Halosenniemi, his wooden house-studio, now a mythical site of Finnish culture.

In this self-sufficient environment, surrounded by his family and fellow artists, Halonen developed a philosophy of life in harmony with nature, which profoundly permeates his work.

👉 Here, painting becomes an extension of everyday life, a breathing rhythm shaped by the seasons.

The painter of snow: a symphony in white

If one word were to sum up Pekka Halonen, it would be snow.

No other Finnish painter explored with such finesse:

• the nuances of white
• winter light
• the silence of snow-covered landscapes

In the 1920s, some works verge on abstraction, heralding a striking modernity.

🔹 The final section of the exhibition, Symphony in White Major, offers a rare contemplative experience, where the gaze slows, becoming almost meditative.

An immersive and sensory exhibition at the Petit Palais

More than a retrospective, the Petit Palais offers a truly sensory experience:

• a refined, architecturally structured scenography
• olfactory installations developed with dsm-firmenich
• a meditative route inspired by Finnish nature

👉 A resolutely contemporary approach, bringing ecology, art, and perception into dialogue.

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