Jean-Marie Appriou’s sculptures explore the intersections of mythology, archeology, and the natural world. He is a master of material, working with aluminum, bronze, clay, glass and wax, creating fantastical worlds and sculptural environments. He unites the past, present, and future through his allegorical narratives and scenes that draw upon an expansive visual vocabulary ranging from ancient Greek, Egyptian, and Medieval influences to contemporary culture and futuristic realms. Human, animal, and vegetal figures inhabit his carefully constructed worlds.
Appriou’s work is often monumental in scale, though the work always maintains an intimate relationship with the viewer; his fingerprints are often visible on the surface.
Major exhibitions of Appriou’s work have been presented at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Fondation Lafayette Anticipations, Paris; Musée du Louvre, Paris; Fondation Vincent van Gogh, Arles; Musée des Abattoirs, Toulouse; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Consortium Museum, Dijon; Villa Medici, Rome; Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence; Tank Shanghai; Biennale de Lyon and the 7th Jing’an International Sculpture Project, Shanghai. He was invited by the Public Art Fund to present a group of sculptures at the Doris C. Freedman Plaza at the southeast entrance to Central Park in New York, at the Château de Versailles and at the Vienna Biennale. In 2023, he was chosen by curator Donatien Grau to engrave a copper plate and produce an etching, La Constellation du Louvre, 2023 that entered the Musée du Louvre collection.
Appriou lives and works in Brittany and Paris, France.