Artist: François Bard

Opera Gallery presents, for the first time, an exhibition dedicated to François Bard, bringing together a recent body of work that explores the enduring language of figurative painting through the lens of contemporary experience.

Born in France in 1959, where he lives and works, Bard draws upon the visual traditions of 16th- and 17th-century European painting, particularly the dramatic contrasts of light and shadow characteristic of chiaroscuro. His paintings place isolated, almost princely figures against dark and often abstract backgrounds, evoking themes of power, vanity and the human desire to leave a lasting trace.

At the heart of Bard’s practice lies a reflection on the enduring relevance of painting itself. His compositions deliberately suspend narrative, inviting the viewer to project their own interpretation onto the image. Contemporary forms of representation and the framing imposed by photography and digital media also inform his work, questioning how we perceive and construct images of the world around us.

In these recent works, figuration and abstraction meet in a space of ambiguity, where light emerges from darkness and familiar subjects become enigmatic presences. Bard describes his practice as a form of “propaganda of his everyday life”—an attempt to transform the fleeting into something timeless. His paintings ultimately become meditations on memory, mortality and the illusory hope of leaving a mark in the darkness.

A graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, François Bard was a resident of the Casa de Velázquez from 1988 to 1990 and was awarded the Prix Belmondo in 1990.