Valentin Rilliet Born 1996 in Geneva, Switzerland

Lives and works in Zurich, Switzerland

Valentin Rilliet is a Swiss-Chinese visual artist who predominantly works in oil painting and ink drawing. His artistic practice includes intercultural studies and the reinterpretation of mythologies, folklore, symbolism, and historical events. By exploring his mixed heritage, his works are filled with layered and ambiguous narratives often combined with ghostly anachronistic figures and motifs specific to the languages between a diverse set of art historical canons. 

Drawing from historic and personal archives in addition to individual observations as source materials, his creative process repurposes the established narratives into magical realism, ultimately raising the question of authenticity and bias in his cultural and visual references. By combining fiction and documented records, his work becomes evocations of events, possessing an imprint of the past yet blurring any clear indication of their origins. The subjects and compositions in his paintings and drawings articulate a dialogue as a method to deconstruct, collect, and contemplate the ambiguity of interpretations over seemingly historical reproductions. 

Stylistically, American painter R.B. Kitaj and Kenyan-British painter Michael Armitage are obvious inspirations for Rilliet. Additionally, his visual style is influenced by Russian-born American artist Sanya Kantarovsky and Japanese Nihonga-style painter Kawabata Ryūshi. With this background, Rilliet skillfully develops his technique in the style of magic realism. As an artist, he is inherently interested in creating his own narrative through personal investigation, free from prejudice and preconceived viewpoints. This allows him to create paintings with artistic sovereignty and authenticity. 

Valentin Rilliet (b.1996, Geneva, Switzerland), lives and works in Zurich. In 2023, he graduated from ZHdK with an MFA in Fine Arts and graduated with a BFA in Fine Arts from The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, UK, in 2020. In 2023 he was awarded the Yvonne-Lang Chardonnens Stiftung, and Pro Helvetia (artist residency in Chongqing, China). His work has been shown at LINSEED Projects (Shanghai, 2024), Atelier Righini Fries (Zurich, 2024), Espace TOPIC (Geneva, 2024), the Grosse Regionale (Rapperswil, 2023), Galerie Peter Kilchmann (Zurich, 2023), Modern Animals Gallery (Zurich, 2023), Bahay Contemporary (Geneva, 2023), Sonnenstube Offspace (Lugano, 2022). His paintings are included in public and private collections across Switzerland, China, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Among them are the Swiss National Bank, Stadt Zurich, Zürcher Kantonalbank, Sammlung der Schweizer Post, The Leir Foundation, and the Royal Collection of the Crown Prince and Princess of Luxembourg.

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