Raphaëlle Peria

Si j'étais un arbre, je serais toi
May 23 - July 17 2025
Opening for Paris Gallery Weekend
Opening Friday May 23rd 6pm - 9pm

"Sometimes with children, when the temptation to touch something they want is too strong, we ask them to touch with their eyes. This demand, which represses the need to experience the tactile sensation of a material, is perhaps at the origin of Raphaëlle Peria's creative process: what if we could obtain the sensation of ‘touching with our eyes’? Words have this evocative power when they are poetic, like the verses of Guillevic that often inspire the artist. But here it's a question of making images speak. To give them the quality of being a representation as much as an object that the eye can observe, filling itself with a tactile sensation.

In nature, in the midst of the plant world, we caress, smell and listen at the same time as our vision understands shapes and colors: we are offered a sense of totality. How can we recreate this experience? Entering into the image is utopic, so why shouldn't the image leave its surface and come to us? Here is Raphaëlle Peria's world in relief: meticulous, repetitive actions in the layers of paper and pigment work like the wind that blows transforming the flatness of the image into a delicate bark.

Of course, we'll just have to ‘touch with our eyes’, as Raphaëlle Peria's enlarged prints turn their fragility into an allegory of nature in turmoil today. But this optical thickness is a recomposition of the whole world. It is no longer a question of contemplating nature through the eyes of others, but of accessing the being of trees and plants. For the artist, the tree is a subject, not an object; it can express itself through its gestures, which are a metaphor for the rustling of its foliage and the muffled flow of its sap. If we were the tree, we might offer ourselves an invitation to touch."

Michel Poivert 


Raphaëlle Peria - Born in 1989, Amiens. Lives and works in Paris.

NEWS 2025
Publication of the artist's book Accorder le néant à l'infini
Co-edition Editions Loco / Galerie Papillon
With the support of Cnap, Drawing Society, EYE Art Dotation and Fondation Bullukian
Texte by Philippe Piguet
Graphic design by Corinne App
Format 27 x 20 cm / Hard cover, 124 pages / Color photographs
Bilingual French/English

To be published in June 2025 – Sales price 40 € incl. VAT

"[…] She says she loves trees. Loves them all the time. 
It is her favorite subject. […] She says, "they carry our memory, they guard our secrets". What's more, they are able to live much longer. Standing straight, they are both resistant and resilient. They give us the measure of time, that of nature in its fullness, between earth and sky. This is what the artist celebrates and highlights. […]
Raphaëlle Peria loves everything to do with living things. She is interested in life and earth sciences, and vitality. Ecosystems are at the heart of her concerns."
Philippe Piguet, extract from De rerum natura in Accorder le néant à l'infini.

Les rencontres de la photographie d'Arles and Paris Photo, project with Fanny Robin Traversée du fragment manquant as part of the BMW ART MAKERS program, July and November 13-16
Solo show at Chapelle de la Visitation – Espace d’art contemporain, Thonon-les-Bains, Octobre 18 - December 14


BIOGRAPHY IN A FEW DATES
2014 Graduate of the École Supérieure d'Art de Bretagne
2015 Finalist in the Bourse Révélations Emerige
2017 Marinus Asiaticus, first solo show at Galerie Papillon, Paris
2019 Creative residency and exhibition Narcissus in flores at Château Blanc, Flixecourt
2021 Group show Blooming, Domaine Vranken-Pommery, Reims
Artist residency, Drawing Factory, Paris
2022 Les pierres ne fanent pas, solo show at FRAC Picardie, Amiens
Group show Singularités plurielles Azul Andrea, Eva Jospin, Raphaëlle Peria, Christelle Téa at the Chapelle de la Visitation - Espace d'art contemporain, Thonon-les-Bains
2023 Artist residency, Domaine des Oseraies, Faverolles
Group show Rien que les battements d’une absence de bruit, Maison des Arts Plastiques Rosa Bonheur, Chevilly-Larue
Group show Sentir le monde, H2M Espace d’art contemporain, Bourg-en-Bresse and as part of Campagne-Première, Revonnas
2024 Dérives de nos rêves informulés, solo show at Fondation Bullukian, Lyon
Vogue au creux des valleuses, solo show at Musée Michel Ciry, Varengeville-sur-mer as part of the "Normandie Impressioniste" festival
Group show French Photography Today, Sungkok Art Museum, Séoul, Corée du Sud
Group show UNIQUE beyond photography, Hangar photo art center, Bruxelles, Belgique
Le cycle des silences, in-situ commission Drawing Hotels Collection, hôtel Miss Fuller, Paris
2025 Winner with Fanny Robin of the BMW ART MAKERS program: Traversée du fragment manquant, solo show at Rencontres de la photographie, Arles and at Paris Photo
Si j’étais un arbre, je serais toi, solo exhibition at Galerie Papillon, Paris
2025-2026 Residency at Casa de Velázquez, Académie de France in Madrid