Éric Corne (born 30 October 1957 in Flixecourt, France) is a visual artist, curator, professor, and author based in Paris. He creates paintings, works on paper, and video art. His artworks have been presented internationally. He also works as curator and artistic director at contemporary art institutions in Europe and South America.
Education Éric Corne grew up in the Picardy region of northern France. He turned to visual arts after two years of medical studies at the University of Amiens. In 1983, he graduated from the École régionale supérieure d'expression plastique and 1985 from the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (ENSAD) in Paris. He also earned a master's degree in art history from the University Charles de Gaulle of Lille III in 1995.Galerie Patricia Dorfmann. "Éric Corne – Bio." https://www.patriciadorfmann.com/artist/corne/bio. Accessed 28 November 2025.Galerie Nosbaum & Reding – Art Contemporain (2010). Lost Lights. Exhibition catalogue. Luxembourg: Galerie Nosbaum & Reding – Art Contemporain, p. 5.GAC Artotheque. Département de l'Ardèche. "Eric Corne". Accessed 4 December 2025
During his studies, Corne developed a sustained interest in the history of painting alongside his own artistic practice, with particular attention to Italian Primitives and Early Netherlandish art, as well as modern and contemporary painting. He has also cited cinema and literature as significant influences.Fedeli, Elisa. "Interview with Éric Corne." Paris Art, 16 December 2010. Accessed 28 November 2025.
Artistic practice Corne works primarily as a painter, using oil. He also integrates drawing, lithography, and video art. He creates interconnected, enigmatic scenes filled with unsettling details that reference art history, literature, and mythology,Rosenberg, David. D'abondance, couleurs de nuit. Exhibition text. Paris: Galerie Patricia Dorfmann, 2015. as well as for his use of bright colors and impastoed surfaces.Chassepot, Béatrice. "La peinture bouge enfin grâce à Éric Corne." be-Art Magazine, 4 June 2007. Accessed 28 November 2025.
Evolution From around 1989, Corne's work was associated with the movement La nouvelle figuration (New French Figuration), employing serial and conceptual approaches.Stalter, Marcel-André. "Considérations sur un aspect de la figure peinte aujourd'hui: tableaux et dessins d'Éric Corne." Revue du Nord, 74, no. 297–298 (July–December 1992): pp. 873–882. By the early 2000s, following a year-long pause and exposure to non-European art,Rigollet, Catherine. "Éric Corne peintre." L'agora des arts. nov-déc 2017. Accessed 28 November 2025. he turned toward more scenic and complex figurative compositions,Bellet, Harry. "Sélection galeries: Éric Corne chez Patricia Dorfmann." Le Monde, 11 September 2020. Accessed 28 November 2025. which were largely marginalized within France's public contemporary art institutions.Jocks, Heinz-Norbert. "Die Kampfansage. Frankreich und die figurative Malerei." Kunstforum International, no. 292 (2023): pp. 275–287. Critics have described his visual repertoire as "outside conventional painting codes" and offering experiences "rarely encountered" in contemporary art. One noted that, unusually, he "does not shy away from meaning, ideas, or emotion".Kaeppelin, Olivier. "Underworld." Éric Corne – Lost Lights. Exhibition catalogue. Luxembourg: Galerie Nosbaum & Reding – Art Contemporain, 2012. p. 12 In several works, such as Being Beauteous (2014–2015) and Rideaux jaunes (2015),Eric Corne. Paintings 2014-2015. Accessed 28 November 2025 Corne explored the role of the marginalized artist by depicting himself with large, grotesque, anti-heroic clown shoes, while earlier works such as Corps à cœur persuadé par les nuages noirs (2013)Eric Corne. Paintings 2012-2013. Accessed 28 November 2025. feature oversized boxing gloves, metaphorically suggesting a provocateur with tied hands.
Paintings Corne's paintings are of interlinked scenes ranging from portraits and still lifes to interiors, urban spaces, and landscapes. Critics have described them as "articulated, complex, and yet all in one block", lacking clear boundaries between genres or between "the center and the periphery, the dream and the nightmare".Tortosa, Guy. Éric Corne, Paysages à la découpe. Text dedicated to the artist. 26 March 2007. Accessed 28 November 2025. Corne sometimes distorts proportions or employs multiple viewpoints.Crenn, Julie. "Éric Corne." Art Press, N°422, May 2015, p. 26. He has stated, "I believe I film in painting", noting that compositional "cuts and drifting islands" prevent any fixed narrative.Haenel, Yannick. "Traverser à la nage." Éric Corne – Lost Lights. Exhibition catalogue. Luxembourg: Galerie Nosbaum & Reding – Art Contemporain, 2012. p. 17
Motifs may appear awkward or deliberately simplified, suggesting, according to David Rosenberg, a visual language that "makes things less obvious, but also more passionate". Rosenberg speaks of Corne's "potential images", drawing on Early Netherlandish painting and its "hidden mysticism". Allegorical titles add further interpretive layers. Themes of "tragedy, beauty, madness, death, circus, and melancholy" run throughout his work. Scenes of grace—likened to a "beautiful poem"—coexist with depictions of "power, soldiering, aggression, mutilation, madness, derision, loneliness, [and] strangeness". Critics interpret these contrasts as expressing "the hope for a better world" alongside "a terrifying disconcertment in the face of the chaos of the world". Corne concurred with a critic's reference to Rilke's idea that beauty "is nothing but the beginning of terror".
Corne develops his paintings gradually and without preparatory drawings or projections, describing the process as "an experience of the unknown".Pigeat, Anaël. Le réalisme des anges II. Exhibition text. Paris: Galerie Patricia Dorfmann, 2020. Since around 2015 he has favored a bright palette, notably intense blues. Some argue that "he is obsessed with light". Color and light have been described as both a compositional tool and an objective in its own right. Laurent Buffet characterizes his colors as the painter's "exile" and "paradise" after modernism's rejection of figuration.Buffet, Laurent. Le crime et l'exil. Exhibition text. Belgrade: 59th October Salon (Belgrade Biennale). 2022. Others emphasize the materiality of his paint as "more real than reality itself", applied in controlled impasto to create scenes suspended in time and space.Éric Corne. Les apparences. épisode 22. 21 nov. 2021. Accessed 28 November 2025. Corne relates this sensibility for the colors and materials to his northern French background and also cites writers, filmmakers, and travel as influences.Fedeli, Elisa (16 December 2010). "Interview with Éric Corne." Paris Art. Accessed 28 November 2025.
Described as a "painter's painter", Corne creates "dialogues between painting and painting", referencing artists such as Piero della Francesca, Nicolas Dipre, Claude Monet, Francis Bacon, Paula Rego, Pablo Picasso, Max Beckmann, Philip Guston, and Charlotte Salomon.
Works on paper Since 2000, Corne has made black-and-white drawings in pencil or charcoal alongside his brightly colored oil paintings. The lines often appear searching and the forms deliberately awkward, suggesting open, unresolved shapes. This approach also applies to his smaller-scale prints. Both drawings and prints are regarded as independent works rather than preparatory studies for paintings.Azimi, Roxana. "La déclaration d'amour d'Eric Corne." Le quotidien de l'art, no. 351, 3 April 2013.
Video Corne has made video works. These real-time collapses of objects and buildings evoke collapsing hopes and hierarchies. Guy Tortosa sees them as "the accumulation—rather than the flattening—of being, thought, painting, architecture, and the entire modern project" and as homages to "Serra, Smithson, Heizer, Matta-Clark, Haus-Rucker-Co, Sarkis, Ruthenbeck, and Gasiorowski", asking whether a "new world" might arise from "nowhere".Tortosa, Guy. "Éric Corne, Paysages à la découpe." Dedicated to the artist. 26 March 2007. Retrieved 28 November 2025.
Exhibitions Éric Corne's works have been presented since 1995 in almost 40 solo exhibitions and group shows in France and elsewhere. They have been discussed extensively in numerous reviews and texts. Recent exhibitions include the 59th October Salon in Belgrade where Corne was exhibited at the National Museum of Serbia;59th October SalonInstitut Français. "Salon d'octobre – Eric Corne au Musée National". 3 November 2022. Accessed 28 November 2025 DésordresBellet, Harry. "La collection Antoine de Galbert, au Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon, des mondes à penser" Le Monde. 15 May 2024. Accessed 28 November 2025. from the Antoine de Galbert Collection at the Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon, France;MacLyon. Press release. "Désordre. Extraits de la collection Antoine de Galbert." Accessed 28 November 2025. Le Jour des peintresLe Jour des peintres at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris;Musée d'Orsay. Press release. "Le jour des peintres". Accessed 25 November 2025. and the inaugural exhibition Empreintes in the Chapelle PDP in Pézenaz, France.EmpreintesPDF Chapelle. Empreintes. Exhibition catalogue. Accessed 25 November 2025
Collections Corne's paintings and paper works are in both private and public collections, including the Fondation Antoine de Galbert,Fondation Antoine de Galbert. https://fondationantoinedegalbert.org/collection/artistes/ Accessed 28 November 2025 the collection Marin Karmitz, the Fonds d'art contemporain - Paris Collections,Fonds d'art contemporain Paris collections. La collection en ligne. Eric Corne. Accessed 28 Novembre 2025 the Fonds régional d'art contemporain d'Île de France,Fonds régional d'art contemporain d'Île de France, Éric Corne, 12 figures de 12 à 00 Figure, 1996. . Accessed 28. Novembre 2025 the Centre national des arts plastiques,Eric Corne. 1 figure - ultime, 2005. CNAP. Accessed 28 November 2025 the Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art,Éric Corne. Cinq figures de cinq figures, 1997. Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. Accessed 28 November 2025 and the URDLA.Artistes. "Éric Corne". L'URDLA - centre international estampe & livre. Accessed 28 November 2025
Curating and directing
Curator