A major event for contemporary art in Aix-en-Provence
From April 29 to May 3, 2026, I will have the pleasure of exhibiting at the Sm’Art Life contemporary art fair in Aix-en-Provence, at the TargetArt booth. For me, this participation is part of both a personal and collective endeavor. On the one hand, it will allow me to present the world of Imaginary Planets at a renowned contemporary art fair. On the other hand, it will give me the opportunity to engage in dialogue with other contemporary artists gathered in the same exhibition space.
Sm’Art Life attracts an audience receptive to visual arts, contemporary creation, contemporary artworks, and direct interaction with the exhibiting artists. Thus, this type of international art fair or major art event is not simply a succession of exhibitions. It becomes a space for the exchange of artworks, perspectives, materials, and sensibilities. In this sense, the fair aligns with what I love about contemporary art exhibitions: the opportunity to foster a vibrant exchange between artists, collectors, contemporary art enthusiasts, and curious visitors.
Furthermore, exhibiting in Aix-en-Provence lends this event a unique character. The city possesses a genuine cultural appeal. It attracts both fine art enthusiasts and visitors attentive to the current art scene. Therefore, participating in an art fair like Sm’Art Life takes on a highly stimulating dimension. It allows one to present their work, meet new collectors, and exchange ideas with gallery owners or art lovers who are discovering a particular approach for the first time.
A Group Exhibition Conceived as an Encounter
The TargetArt Booth as a Pop-Up Contemporary Art Gallery
For the duration of the fair, the TargetArt booth will function as a genuine contemporary art gallery. Of course, it's not a permanent gallery in the traditional sense. However, for a few days, this space will become a place for displaying, engaging in dialogue, presenting artworks, and discovering several complementary artistic worlds.
This is also what makes art fairs and exhibitions so exciting. Unlike a solo exhibition, a group exhibition allows for a dialogue between very different approaches. We move from an introspective painting to a dreamlike photograph, from a work of recycling to a collage practice, from a symbolic universe to a visual exploration focused on feathers, color, or vibration. Moreover, this juxtaposition enriches the understanding of each artist. It reveals contrasts, but also connections.
For a visitor, this diversity is invaluable. It allows us to approach the art world not as a uniform block, but as a collection of unique voices. Some works speak immediately. Others reveal themselves more slowly. Some seduce through their materials. Others through their ideas, composition, light, or emotional intensity. It is precisely this diversity that makes a well-curated art exhibition so rich.
Imaginary Planets: Contemporary Photography Between Reality and Dreams
An artistic approach at the crossroads of several languages
For my part, I will present several works from my Imaginary Planets series. My work lies at the intersection of photography, recomposed images, drawing, painting, and a form of visual storytelling. In other words, I don't simply seek to produce photographic images. I seek to transform the visible, to give it a poetic density, to shift a fragment of reality into another space.
Each work begins with a landscape, an urban detail, a natural material, a light, or a horizon. This starting point is then reinterpreted. Little by little, the real place detaches itself from its simple descriptive function. It becomes a work of contemporary art, a mental space, a sensitive territory. This is how these mini-planets that compose my universe are born.
This approach is fully situated within the field of contemporary photography. Indeed, I don't see photography as simply a recording of the world. I view it as a fully-fledged artistic medium, capable of engaging in dialogue with other disciplines within the visual and graphic arts. Consequently, my creations aim to evoke emotion, surprise, sometimes a slight sense of unease, always in service of a more open visual experience.
Contemporary artworks designed for encounter
Exhibiting my contemporary works at a contemporary art fair like Sm'Art Life is therefore highly meaningful. The fair allows images to transcend their purely digital or editorial existence and confront them with physical presence. And encountering a work of art changes everything. Format, texture, finish, light, distance, the rhythm of the gaze: all these elements contribute to the experience.
I also want my contemporary artworks to remain accessible to the viewer. They can certainly elicit different, sometimes very personal, interpretations. However, they do not seek to exclude. On the contrary, they invite. They open a passage between reality and imagination. They offer a moment of pause in a world saturated with fleeting images.
In this spirit, Sm’Art Life will be a special opportunity to discuss my practice, explain my creative process, and demonstrate how a real landscape can become a poetic, strange, sensitive, and sometimes meditative creation. This is also why I love contemporary art fairs: they make a direct connection between the artist and the public possible.
Photo of an Imaginary Planet by Paul Marnef: Mirage
The TargetArt Artists Exhibiting Alongside Me
At the TargetArt booth, I won't be exhibiting alone. I'll have the pleasure of being surrounded by several contemporary artists with distinctive approaches, whose works fully enrich this contemporary art exhibition in Aix-en-Provence. Each artist develops a personal language, a unique medium, a particular sensibility, a way of inhabiting artistic creation. This diversity is the very strength of a contemporary art fair: it allows visitors to move from one world to another, to compare, to experience, and sometimes to discover contemporary artworks very different from those they imagined they would like.
Thus, this group presentation at the TargetArt booth is not simply a juxtaposition of works. It offers a genuine dialogue between several artistic practices: painting, visual arts, contemporary photography, collage, creative recycling, and even pen and ink work. In this spirit, meeting the artists who exhibit alongside me also means entering a pluralistic, open, current artistic scene, where each approach brings its own intensity.
Patrick Moles: Vibrant Painting Between Spirituality, Color, and Interpretation
Patrick Moles develops a pictorial oeuvre in which color plays a central role. For him, it is never merely visual embellishment. It acts as a force, a vibration, sometimes as a threshold to a deeper, more introspective reading. His paintings invite the viewer to enter a mental space where intuition, dreams, and reflection intersect.
His work is part of a quest that touches on both spirituality and sensory experience. Furthermore, his compositions often carry coded messages or signs to be interpreted. This gives his canvases a particular depth. The viewer's gaze is not passive. It is engaged, set in motion, encouraged to construct its own interpretation of the work.
In a contemporary art exhibition, Patrick Moles's presence brings a powerful pictorial intensity. His world enriches the TargetArt booth with an approach to painting that combines emotion, color, and thought. Thus, he fully participates in this diverse artistic creation that the public will be able to discover in Aix-en-Provence.
Acrylic on canvas by Patrick Moles: Amazing Blue Planet
Françoise Lenoble: A Painter of Emotion, Harmony, and Presence
Françoise Lenoble is a painter whose work is based on a profound relationship between color, harmony, and emotion. Her work explores a humanist dimension where each nuance seems to carry an intimate intensity. Therefore, her painting is not merely a formal exploration; it becomes a sensitive language.
What is striking about her canvases is the quality of presence they exude. Nothing is demonstrative. Yet, everything resonates. A tone, a balance, a breath, a sometimes subtle tension—these are enough to create a dialogue with the viewer. Moreover, her quest for beauty and authentic expression gives her work great coherence.
As part of this contemporary art exhibition in Aix-en-Provence, Françoise Lenoble will bring a precious pictorial and emotional dimension to the exhibition. His world will speak to those who love original works, the sensitivity of color, and the way that some creations have of touching us silently, but lastingly.
Acrylic on linen canvas by Françoise LENOBLE: Ce qui insiste...
Jean-Marc Ambrosini: Between Photography, Collage, and Hybrid Visual Creation
Jean-Marc Ambrosini explores a fascinating area situated between photography, collage, drawing, painting, and the repurposing of objects. His work demonstrates a great freedom of construction. Indeed, for him, the image circulates between several territories. It does not adhere to a fixed definition. It is composed, shifts, and transforms.
His photographs and handmade collages form the raw material of his approach. Subsequently, the use of digital technology opens up new artistic avenues. The result is profoundly contemporary. It defies overly rigid categories. It belongs to a contemporary art form that embraces the transitions between mediums.
This approach is particularly stimulating in the context of a contemporary art fair. It shows how the current scene welcomes cross-disciplinary practices, blurring the lines between disciplines. Jean-Marc Ambrosini brings a unique visual style to the TargetArt booth, rooted in photography but open to other forms of artistic expression. His work will appeal to contemporary photography enthusiasts as well as those who appreciate hybrid works, auteur-driven universes, and demanding artistic approaches.
Premium color print on Metallic paper by Jean-Marc Ambrosini: Dogs 16 in four colours
Nino’s: Recycling as a Material for Creation and Storytelling
Tony Asaro, aka Nino’s, develops an approach based on the transformation of recycled materials such as metal, wood, and plastic. This foundation allows him to produce works where the material finds a second life, not only utilitarian, but also poetic and symbolic. Thus, his work is part of a contemporary artistic reflection on consumption, the environment, and art’s capacity to repurpose what seemed lost.
His approach possesses a true plastic force. The material never remains raw in the passive sense of the term. It becomes language, volume, assemblage, presence. Furthermore, Nino’s readily draws on mythological, historical, or religious references, blending them with elements from the plant, animal, or object worlds. From this intersection emerges a rich, sometimes surprising, and always inhabited visual narrative.
He also designs terrariums and self-contained aquariums combined with metal. This dialogue between structure, living matter, and decorative dimension makes his work particularly original. In a temporary contemporary art gallery like the TargetArt stand, his presence will introduce a very current interpretation of artistic creation, situated between commitment, formal invention, and the power of recycling.
Metal sculpture made with recycled materials by Nino's: IL IA
Litzia: The Feather, Vibration, and the Legacy of an Ancestral Art
Fanny Litzia has developed a universe based on the feather, a material that is at once light, vibrant, precious, and expressive. The origin of this approach lies in a profound experience during Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. There, the feather imposed itself upon her as a total presence: colorful, vibrant, radiant, omnipresent. Since then, it has continuously nourished her imagination.
Her artistic journey began with the creation of samba costumes before evolving into featherwork. This shift is essential. It demonstrates how a practice linked to movement, celebration, and brilliance can become a more sculptural, more artisanal, and more introspective exploration. Thus, the feather ceases to be a mere ornament. It becomes a material for creation.
In a contemporary art exhibition, this singularity is invaluable. Litzia's work offers a rare, immediately identifiable texture. It connects gesture, material, memory, and transmission. His world will speak as much to lovers of refined artistic objects as to those interested in the crafts, the sensuality of materials and the symbolic power of ancestral know-how revisited in a contemporary style.
Waves begin to move and protect these living beings, which some will see as green, others as blue. The finesse and delicacy, the fluidity, the undulating movement of Fanny Lizia: Mer Verte
Why Sm’Art Life is Worth a Visit
A Contemporary Art Fair Conducive to Discovery
Today, there are numerous contemporary art fairs, temporary exhibitions, art galleries, and events dedicated to modern and contemporary art. Yet, not all offer the same quality of experience. What makes Sm’Art Life particularly interesting is precisely its ability to bring together artists, gallery owners, creators, and visitors in an environment where discovery remains central.
The public can discover contemporary artists, observe their artworks, engage with them, compare approaches, perceive materials, and immerse themselves in a visual narrative. For collectors, it’s an opportunity to refine their eye. For art lovers, it’s a way to explore the art scene without intimidation. And for artists, it’s a place for visibility, dialogue, and networking.
An Experience for Contemporary Art Lovers and Collectors
I firmly believe in the importance of these events in the contemporary art market. Not because they reduce art to its commercial dimension. On the contrary, they often allow us to reconcile aesthetic emotion with the reality of the encounter. A work of art can move us, surprise us, provoke thought. Only then can the desire to collect be born.
In this context, Sm’Art Life offers an interesting experience for art collectors, but also for those who wish to acquire their first work, discover new artists, or better understand the diversity of contemporary approaches. It is also a place where one can encounter affordable works, more ambitious pieces, emerging artistic worlds, or established artists.
Come meet me in Aix-en-Provence
An invitation to discover Imaginary Planets and other artists
If you already follow my work, this edition of the fair will be a wonderful opportunity to rediscover Imaginary Planets in a new context, surrounded by other powerful artistic approaches. If you are not yet familiar with my world, then Sm’Art Life can be your first encounter with my art photography, my miniature planets, and this desire to transform reality into a realm of feeling.
I invite you to come and discover my works, as well as those of Patrick Moles, Françoise Lenoble, Jean-Marc Ambrosini, Nino’s, and Fanny Litzia. Together, we present a collection of contemporary creations where painting, photography, collage, recycling, living materials, and poetic expression intersect.
A contemporary art fair to experience firsthand
Nothing replaces being there in person. Viewing an image on a screen, reading a text, browsing an art website, or following an artist on social media never quite offers the same experience as directly encountering the formats, textures, light, and installation. That's why I'd be delighted to welcome you to the Sm'Art Life contemporary art fair in Aix-en-Provence, at the TargetArt booth.
Whether you're a contemporary photography enthusiast, a visual arts aficionado, a collector, simply curious, or already familiar with the work of some of the participating artists, this exhibition will be an opportunity to discover contemporary artworks in a vibrant, open, and welcoming atmosphere.
In short, this participation in Sm'Art Life represents much more than just a fair appearance for me. It marks a significant moment of visibility, connection, and sharing. I hope to see you there, discuss Imaginary Planets with you, and introduce you to several artists whose work truly deserves your attention.