Jean-Baptiste Bernadet was born in Paris in 1978 and has lived and worked in Brussels since 2000. His paintings explore the shifting space between the physical permanence of the painted canvas and the fluid, unstable nature of perception, memory and emotion.
Across different series, Bernadet approaches painting as a field of atmospheric intensity. Colour appears neither fully fixed nor entirely dissolved; it vibrates, recedes and resurfaces, producing images that feel simultaneously material and fugitive. His work often evokes the sensation of looking at something remembered rather than directly seen: a surface suspended between abstraction, landscape, mood and time.
A refined sensitivity to chromatic transition and painterly rhythm marks Bernadet’s practice. His paintings resist immediate legibility, unfolding slowly through layers of tone, light and movement. His work extends the language of colour into a psychological and perceptual register.
Bernadet has held solo exhibitions at Almine Rech in Brussels, Paris, Shanghai and Monaco; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen; Marfa Book Company, Texas; Valentin, Paris; and Karma, New York. He was artist-in-residence at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, in 2010.
His work is included in public and private collections including Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar; Fondation Villa Datris, L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue; MAC VAL, France; CNAP/FNAC, France; Long Museum, Shanghai; and JPMorgan Chase Collection, New York.