Tanguy de Thuret is a painter and visual artist working between Brussels, Rome and Paris.
His work bridges German New Objectivity, Symbolism, and cinema, exploring how images shape our perception of reality in a technological age.
Influenced by Kenneth Anger, William Blake, Gerhard Richter, and Baroque light, his paintings oscillate between precision and dream, documentary and fiction.
Active also as a radio commentator and video essayist, he creates dialogues between art history, film, and contemporary society.
He is a licensed guide in Brussels, Rome and Paris, and regularly collaborates with cultural institutions for exhibitions, talks, and film analysis.
Latest Works
Kira
Oil on canvas, 100 Ă— 70 cm).
Inspired by the dialogue between Flemish and Italian Baroque painting, after visiting the exhibition :"Van Dyck: The European", at Palazzo Ducale in Genoa,"Kira" reimagines a timeless theme. Echoing Titian’s celebrated "Woman with a Mirror" (1515), the traditional mirror becomes a smartphone.! Same gesture, different reflection. With a hint of irony, the cellphone stands in for the classical mirror, asking whether we still see ourselves, or only our screens.
Deep reds recall Rubens, Naples lends its rich palette, and Baroque elegance meets twenty-first-century habits. A playful tribute to the past and a gentle reminder that real life isn't behind glass
Kira
Oil on canvas, 100 Ă— 70 cm
Four centuries separate Van Dyck from the smartphone, yet the question remains the same : who is really looking at whom? The mirror has become a screen. The self-portrait has become a selfie. The painter appears only as a reflection in his muse's device. Kira is not simply a portrait but the image of an inner muse — an anima — through which the artist contemplates beauty, memory, and desire. Beside her stands the Manneken Pis, emblem of Brussels. Like a Baroque putto, it evokes Eros, protection, and the spirit of the place, anchoring the painting in the city where my studio is based. Baroque never disappeared. It simply found a new mirror.
My work explores the fragile boundary between reality and its representation —
a dialogue between painting, cinema, and the contemporary image.
Suspended time, optical clarity, and the tension between presence and illusion
form the core of my practice.
PAINTINGS
I create images that question our relationship to reality — paintings, films, visual essays.
Blending German New Objectivity, Symbolism, and contemporary cinema,
my work explores light, memory, and human presence in an accelerated world.
VIDEOS
My video work extends my painting practice: sculpting time, light and perception.
Influenced by Kenneth Anger, Eisenstein, Derek Jarman, Tarkovsky and Peter Greenaway, I explore the fracture
between analogue memory and digital acceleration.
PAINTINGS
Queen’s Park
(2020, oil on canvas, 60 Ă— 50 cm)
Painted in London just after the first Covid-19 lockdown, this canvas depicts a tarpaulin-covered car, immobilized in an urban park. It evokes the sudden slowdown of the world, the absence of movement, and silence. The tarp transforms the object into an involuntary sculpture, reminiscent of Christo’s work, and gives rise to a poetics of stillness and suspended time.
The Hanged Man
(2021, oil on canvas, 70 × 60 cm) A self-portrait in a mirror, including the reflection of a young autistic woman painted from observation. The figure of the Hanged Man—drawn from the Tarot—becomes a symbol of inversion, suspension and clairvoyance. An intimate meditation on time and death, inspired by a phrase by Jean Cocteau: “The mirror reflects faithfully, but it is false, for it shows death at work.”
Elodie
Oil on canvas, 80 Ă— 60 cm
Painted with great pleasure, against the tide of an increasingly digital age. The model is Élodie, a young autistic woman whose gaze deeply moved me. I sought to capture its silent intensity and unsettling clarity.
The painting draws on David Hockney’s bold colours and frontal compositions, while remaining rooted in the emotional precision of German New Objectivity.
At a time when artificial intelligence seems to absorb everything, I felt a vital need to create physically—guided by Henri Focillon’s belief in the intelligence of the hand and the truth of craftsmanship.g of a timeless brand.
New Moon
Oil on canvas, 100 Ă— 70 cm
Finished on the night of the New Moon in Capricorn.
Another portrait of Elodie.
Plutonian, scorpionic reds.
Caravaggesque chiaroscuro, artificial baroque light,
saturated expressionist colors.
A gaze lifted upward,
like in Neapolitan Ribera paintings,
waiting — quietly — for a miracle.
Short Films
The Golden Ass
Apuleius popular novel, which tells the story of a young man, Lucius, who is turned into a donkey. He is doomed to wander and to suffer and ends up being redeemed after a year by the goddess Isis and inducted into mysteries .
The Cocktail Party
T. S. Eliot’s characters confront existential crises, questioning why they continue living their repetitive, seemingly meaningless lives.
The Arrangement
Student Loans? Yes, Something Is Wrong
Time Present , Time Past
This experimental film was made for the New School Filmmaking class to illustrate T.S. Eliot's poem : "The Hollow Men".
F A S C I N A T I O N
Your brain on porn
NAVIGIUM ISIDIS
An experimental, psychedelic video made in Berlin with DJ and musician Andrea Dama. Inspired by Apuleius’ The Golden Ass and the goddess Isis, with echoes of Derek Jarman and Kenneth Anger.
Magick Lantern
Experimental videos done between 2011-2016. Between Europe & US. Between New-York City & Rome. T.S.Eliot meeting Harmony Korine Springbreakers.