Brice Guilbert

Brice Guilbert (b. 1979 in Montpellier, France) is a French artist who lives and works in Brussels.

Positioned at the threshold of abstraction, Guilbert’s paintings are produced entirely from his imagination, drawing on his lived experience of volcanic terrain. For these works, which are part of a series the artist has been producing over the last 10 years, Guilbert builds dense, gestural layers of color, with each composition offering a distinct emotional register and atmospheric presence.

All of Guilbert’s works are titled Fournez, named for the local pronunciation of the Piton de la Fournaise volcano on Réunion Island, where the artist spent his formative years. His artistic practice, as a whole, is marked by repetition and rhythm, with visual motifs that echo the melodic structures of his music, Creole playing a significant role in his musical work.

Guilbert’s paintings and compositions alike are rooted in personal memory, shaped by his Creole identity and his upbringing on Réunion Island. Central to his work is an overarching sense of nostalgia and an elusive emotional charge that resists linear storytelling or fixed interpretation.

“The subject represented is an eruption, a projection, a sensation projected onto the surface of each canvas. Every work of art is the projection of an emotion and an idea.” – Brice Guilbert