Pierre-Louis Acciari

Pierre-Louis Acciari’s raw sincerity is as unnerving as it is endearing. It’s this tension between ominous harshness and tender honesty that makes his paintings so compelling. Acciari is, after all, exploring fear, a constantly present, perpetually relevant entity. Distorted faces almost always occupy the frame of Acciari’s paintings. The faces, which at times seem both the victim and the embodiment of fear, sometimes dominate, and sometimes lurk in the background. Sometimes they are expressively opaque and sometimes ghostly transparent. The dynamic characterization that occurs in Acciari’s work reflects the comic strip vocabulary that has informed his sensibility since childhood. As a student, Acciari discovered the expressionism of Pollock and Basquiat and the distorted figuration of Francis Bacon, who added painterly emotiveness to his oeuvre. Pop culture and art history effortlessly interact in Acciari’s work, making his paintings as accessible as they are informed.

Acciari, who works as an art director, has pursued a successful design career in addition to his painting. He works in the Lyon region of southern France.