Bernard Pras (b.1952) is a French artist who creates amazing artworks that begin with iconic images, usually photographs or paintings, visualized as installation. He adds ordinary objects like used toys, tools, pieces of rubber; any object can be incorporated. Up close, his works look like nothing more than random stacks of stuff, but from a certain angle and distance, they reveal their true beauty.

Pras spent his childhood in a toy-store and he later began working as a painter and sculptor of recovered objects. After a short career as an art teacher he began to express himself in a new way that some people call “trash-art.” While Pras‟ technique is most often described as anamorphosis, it also embodies aspects of assemblage art and collage.

His bold re-imaginings of our artistic heritage force us to re-examine the way we look at visual art – which is itself a prism through which the artist channels a unique way of translating thoughts, emotions and ways of interpreting the world around us. Pras adds an extra dimension to familiar paintings, photos and images, often choosing materials that enhance certain aspects of his source material and allow the viewer to re-evaluate their original impressions of said source.

Ahead of this exhibition, Bernard Pras wil do an extended residency in China, during which time he will collect objects for an installation specifically for Caochangdi PhotoSpring.