Jean Arcelin, painter of Franco-Swiss origin, creates luminous oil paintings that blend realism and imagination through a refined alla prima technique. His interior scenes, seascapes and architectural visions are entirely invented, transforming familiar subjects into poetic spaces shaped by memory, atmosphere and light. Arcelin's "false realism" evokes presence through absence, inviting viewers into dreamlike worlds suspended between past and present.
His paintings depict interiors, theatres, cafés, libraries, urban streets and coastal landscapes that, although rendered with photographic precision, do not exist in reality. They are spaces of memory and invention - what he calls a "false realism." Through architecture, perspective and the play of light, he evokes human presence without depicting a single figure.
Arcelin's universe is distinguished by its serenity, depth, and theatrical use of colour and light. Each canvas becomes a stage where silence, atmosphere and light take on the role of characters. The result is an art that feels timeless, suspended between past and present, observation and reverie.