Floryan Varennes

Floryan Varennes (B.1988, La Rochelle, France) is an artist-researcher working in sculpture, installation, finery and object, he lives and works between Toulon and Paris. Visual artist with a background in history, he graduated with a DNSEP in 2014 and a Master’s degree in Medieval History in 2020 in Paris.

His work summons ambivalent corporeal apparatuses, by combining technology as well as various artisanal techniques. At the source of his reflection, he deconstructs and interlaces two chronological registers: on the one hand, medieval history, with its warrior connections, its systems of parades, and its forms of love life; on the other hand, speculative futures combining various therapeutic protections and curative techniques, either ancestral, surgical or biomedical. Through this singular combination, Floryan Varennes gives shape to his main preoccupations: to break away from essentialisms, by upsetting binary systems and institutionalised knowledge. From trouble to violence, from care to healing, from desire to love, his commitment is that an attention to the in-between where contrary states, fascinating bodies, spaces of friction with elective ambivalences come together.

Recent solo exhibitions include, Violence Vitale, Musée des Métiers du Cuir, Graulhet/FR, supported by the French Ministry of Culture. Post-Prophylaxie, Art Center, Synagogue de Delme, Lindre-Basse/FR, Cura Te Ipsum, Art Center Ferme-Asile, Sion/CH; Hard Care, Gallery of the Hospital Center Savoie, Chambéry/FR. Ultra-Lésions, Gallery of the Museums, Toulon/FR.

His work has been included in group exhibitions, Retrograde, Galerie du Monde/HK, Néo-Rising, Polansky Gallery, Prague/CZE, Ordained, Horny & Horned, VEDA, Firenze/IT, L’ombre du Paradis, Maëlle Galerie, Paris/FR, Vivace & Troppo, Art Center Le Garage, Amboise/FR, Art Éphémères during the Manifesta, Marseille/Fr, 64e Salon de Montrouge/FR…