Alexis Ralaivao

Ralaivao was born in Rennes, France, in 1991, where he still lives and works. 

As the son of a Madagascan father and a French mother, Ralaivao makes his mixed ethnicity central to his practice as a painter: he focuses exclusively on representations of African, mixed-race, and other nonwhite residents of France. Unlike in the United States, where African American artists such as Kerry James Marshall, Kehinde Wiley, or Kara Walker are represented by established galleries and have works in prestigious museum collections, Black painters are mostly absent in the French art world. Ralaivao’s explicit objective is to break this barrier and establish himself as one of the first Afro-French painters to be included in leading art museum collections in his home country.

While African American and Afro British artists have thus far dominated the discourse around the representation of Black people by Black people, Ralaivao adds a distinctly French perspective that is refined, sensual, and understated.

Courtesy of ATM Gallery