Born in 1964 in La Tronche, near Grenoble, Philippe Perrin studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Grenoble in the 1980s with Philippe Parreno, Dominique Gonzales-Foerster and Pierre Joseph. The artist is making his mark on the international art scene with works in which fiction and reality collide, using the codes of sporting, police, social, religious and intimate violence.

Subversive and provocative, Philippe Perrin’s work challenges our relationship with art. François Villon, Caravaggio, Louis Mandrin, Arthur Cravan and Mesrine make up a sulphurous pantheon that feeds his inspiration. Inventing his own black and gold legend, Philippe Perrin is the twirling figure of a world where fiction and reality mingle. Guns, razor blades, handcuffs, giant knives and crowns of thorns are all sculptures that radiate from the Perrin galaxy. Photography is treated in the same way as sculpture, drawing, video and installation. It’s a shifted mirror that paints a self-portrait of an artist who’s by turns a thug, a bandit, a boxer and a victim.