Cyrille Conan was born in 1973 and grew up in Queens, New York. Conan’s parents immigrated from France, and as a first generation American he is bilingual, holds dual citizenship, and identifies as both French and American. This duality is apparent in his artwork. The graphic nature and grit of Conan’s work derives from growing up in New York City in the ‘70s and ‘80s. A love of nature and natural forms distilled from his Celtic/Breton culture have transformed into a minimal, organic, geometrical abstraction.

Conan graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from the University of Hartford Art School before settling in Boston in 1998. While his primary practice is still painting, he works in a variety of mediums. Conan has produced site-specific installations and murals in numerous states as well as local galleries and public spaces in Boston, including the Cyclorama, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Boston City Hall.

Conan has been developing a vocabulary of mark making, collage and textures to allow his paintings to come into being as honestly and intuitively as possible.  Each layer informs and dictates the final composition until he finds a visual balance of form, color and repetition. Visual balance is achieved through time spent manually altering the surface until his intuition reveals the final image. Everything is handmade.

Conan considers his improvisational process to be a response to the intersection of two modern phenomena: the destruction of nature and the growth of technology. Having a regular studio practice keeps him connected to nature and is an act of defiance against our current condition.