« As an ambition, to paint the world »
From the southern reaches of the Kerguelen Islands to the lush ravines of the Indian Ocean, François Malbreil composes a monumental figurative oeuvre where geometric rigor meets the magnetic vibration of tropical light.
The Marion Dufresne and the Traveller's Palm, 2024
Oil on canvas — 150 × 250 cm
Emblematic panoramic view confronting the bold red and white silhouette of the oceanographic vessel with the monumental fan of a ravenala and volcanic peaks.
View full details →Themes
Each cycle explores a facet of the contemporary world — from austral solitudes to industrial harbors and equatorial flora.
The Marion Dufresne and the Traveller's Palm, 2024
Oil on canvas — 150 × 250 cm
Southern Lands & the Far South
Kerguelen, Crozet, Marion Dufresne & Antarctic ice
Immersion into the mineral and misty solitudes of the French subantarctic islands. The bow of the Marion Dufresne cleaving ink-black swells, tabular icebergs, and the silent glide of wandering albatrosses.
Recent Works
Latest canvases executed en plein air and in the studio, between austral explorations and neotropical landscapes.
The Shadow of the Marion Dufresne in the Kerguelen Islands, 2025
Oil on canvas — 130 × 195 cm
Wild Ravine and Giant Banana Fronds, 2025
Oil on canvas — 140 × 140 cm
The Marion Dufresne and the Traveller's Palm, 2024
Oil on canvas — 150 × 250 cm
Port-Est Stopover and Nighttime Cranes, 2024
Acrylic and oil on linen — 110 × 170 cm
Twilight Flight and Lit Aircraft Wing, 2024
Oil on linen — 90 × 150 cm
“As an ambition, to paint the world.”
“As an ambition, to paint the world. Neither more nor less: pacing its harbors, its airport tarmacs, its untamed ravines, and its austral seas to fix their exact light.”— François Malbreil — Studio Notebooks
The painting of François Malbreil does not stem from naive exoticism: it stems from lived geography. An insatiable surveyor, he sailed aboard the Marion Dufresne towards the Kerguelen, Crozet, and Saint-Paul islands, documented feverish runways across international airports, and captured the incandescent vegetal density of Creole ravines.
Through an assertive ligne claire and crisp chromatic planes — deep cobalt blues, dense emerald greens, cadmium yellows of harbor cranes, and solar ochres —, each canvas becomes a freeze-frame in the ceaseless flow of the contemporary world.
