The works of Peruvian-French artist Bryan Ley (1988) sow confusion. Are we looking at photographs, or something else entirely? With his choice of black-and-white or monochrome acrylic paintings and day-night modulations, Ley creates dusky mysteries. Drawing inspiration from online photographs and images from magazines, he lends his subjects an iconic charge, transforming them into new incarnations and imagined portraits. Museum MORE presents more than 30 works in Bryan Ley’s first solo museum exhibition.
On view in the Garden Gallery at Museum MORE in Gorssel from 9 November 2025 to 3 May 2026.
What immediately stands out in Bryan Ley’s work is his sparkling sprezzatura: the ability to make technically complex painting seem effortless. His mastery reveals itself in the daring placement of his figures and the dynamic interplay between forms, giving his portraits both power and enigma. Although the underlying geometry leans towards abstraction, Ley himself insists that the figurative portrait remains his ‘obsession’ – the theme to which he repeatedly returns.
While Ley’s work appears realistic, his subjects are not real people. They are carefully constructed fictions, assembled from photographs found in magazines, newspapers and on the internet. The original images are of little importance to him: ‘If I reproduced them exactly they would not work as paintings, I have to remove a great deal of things, change them, to get to the essential.’ The result is a paradox: portraits that feel hyperrealistic, even though the depicted figures have never existed.
This fiction mirrors his own background. Born in Lima and adopted by a French family, Ley grew up in Limoges and never returned to Peru. ‘I know everything about my biological parents’, he says, ‘but I never wanted to return.’ His canvases reflect this sense of shifting identity: dual origins, hybrid faces, figures that are neither one thing nor the other. He embraces that openness: ‘I don’t want to explain or limit the ways people can understand these works.’
Although Ley’s paintings often feature Black figures, he rejects any deliberate political agenda: ‘The dark skin captures the light better, the reflections are richer. My choices are aesthetic.’ At the same time, he acknowledges that identity inevitably plays a role: adoption, adolescence, the search for belonging. ‘Whether you want to or not, everything you make is of course ‘political’ in some sense… But this work speaks as well about death, these larger existential questions.’
Materiality is central to his practice. Ley searches outdoors for suitable pieces of fabric, stretching printed textiles to use as his support. He deliberately leaves the sides of his canvas unpainted, to ‘unmask’ the original fabric and design. He paints thinly so that the pattern remains visible as clothing, while the faces are built up in dense, opaque layers. ‘Otherwise you would not see that it was a patterned textile.’ This play of illusion and revelation heightens the artificiality of his work.
Ley’s practice is rooted in tradition – a traditional art education, work in Parisian studios – yet directed towards innovation. He admits that in a sense every painting is a self-portrait: ‘If it was not, it would not be a good painting.’ The result is a universe of imagined beings, monumental and compelling.
About Bryan Ley
Bryan Ley was born in Peru and grew up in Limoges, France. He studied at the art academy in Poitiers, and later at the renowned Van der Kelen institute of decorative painting in Brussels, where he won a Bronze Medal. His work has featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, and he received the highest painting award from the Institut Culturel Bernard Magrez.
The exhibition is guest curated by Adrian Dannatt, in collaboration with Curator Sito Rozema. Dannatt (1963) is a British writer, curator and collector who divides his time between New York, London and Paris.
The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated 48-page booklet, available in the museum shop for € 7.95.
All images ©Bryan Ley
