Selected Artist — Open Call 2026
About
Baptiste Gilloz's recent works are produced in Vietnam and draw freely from the observation of garments made by ethnic communities living throughout the region. These textiles strike him because they occupy a territory that painting also inhabits: they are structures, rhythms, colours, memories and material facts at the same time.
The paintings develop through folding, dying, masking, covering, revealing, repetition and correction. Their forms may evoke sewing stitches, pixels, garments, figures, talismans, architectures, cells.
Gilloz thinks of abstraction both as a language of reduction and as a field of possibility. Its strength lies in its ability to generate meanings that were not present at the outset. A successful painting always knows something that its painter did not know when beginning it.
Painting may be one of humanity's oldest acts, and abstract basic signs or colours may be one of its oldest forms of recognition. For Gilloz, we always need to return there.
Selected works
Forza, douceur et babillage (c)
Forza, douceur et babillage (d)
Identity / danh tính
Mets ton écharpe tu vas prendre froid (d)
Soleil de plomb
Un talisman Guston (d)
Forza, douceur et babillage — detail
Garment for Identity / danh tính
Mets ton écharpe tu vas prendre froid — detail
Q & A
Is geometry a constraint or a freedom for you — and has that answer ever changed?
Both I guess. Some gestures or types of vocabulary are abandoned in order to clarify what matters in the specific process. The freedom relies in the fact that when you have defined rules, you can 1. Always go beyond what was foreseen, 2. Always break the rules.
Walk us through your process — where does a piece begin, and how do you know it's finished?
It begins with the dying patterns that cannot be totally controlled and give a first direction. When stretching the dyed canvas, the grid reveals where to be covered or not. When you deal with minimal actions, each have to be relevant and surprises you as a whole. A painting is done when it doesn’t need an extra action. It can happen at the very first steps.
Is there something outside of art — a system, structure, or phenomenon — that quietly shapes how you think about form?
Answered in Bio
What does a viewer miss when they see your work as 'just geometry'?
In these times of visual extreme solicitations, it’s hard to watch at a painting. That’s why it’s important for me to give a few more clues. By living some raw canvas and artisanal dye, I think one shall wonder why and try to figure out where do the origins of the composition come from? It might not be that easy, but at least it disturbs the “only decorative”.
What's the last rule you set for yourself in the work, and did you keep it?
While talking with some people I realize that to show them the garment, was really helping. So, a rule I want to keep is showing a picture of the work’s inspiration when it has one, and leaving some information about it.
Describe a failure or a dead end in your practice — something that didn't work.
I tried many times to add some words… always failed.
