Originally from Sète in southern France, Hervé Di Rosa has gradually forged an artistic path inspired by popular culture, animated film and comic books.

His work, infused with curiosity and innovation, has found expression through fruitful collaborations with various artisans from around the world. It has manifested in a vast array of techniques, ranging from acrylic on canvas to sculpture, egg tempera and gold leaf on wood, alongside painting on azulejos.

With “Idols and Treasures”, Hervé di Rosa showcases his journey as a painter over the past five years. The exhibition features a series of around a dozen of medium-sized and large-format paintings created between 2020 and 2024. The artist pays tribute to nearly four centuries of cultural explorations which have shaped history, drawing from the rich traditions of painting, sculpture, music and literature. Each canvas invites visitors to immerse themselves in Di Rosa’s lavish and deceptively naive world.

Rejecting all sense of hierarchy, the artist’s canvases evoke Christopher Colombus’ majestic caravels, Jules Verne’s mysterious abysses, the imposing Mayan temples of Chichen Itza and the sumptuous sarcophagi of the most illustrious of Egyptian pharaohs. These complex compositions, situated at the edge of surrealism, unveil hybrid characters, ranging from historical figures to endearing four-eyed monsters and nurturing mother earth figures made of bricks. Di Rosa’s enchanting microcosms thus establish a playful and constructive dialogue between the fine arts, applied arts, outsider art and cultivated art, as well as between Western and non-Western art. With this work Di Rosa, a dazzlingly unique artist, reveals a vision of art without borders, transcending cultural genres and geographical origins, effectively abolishing any hierarchy that values high culture over low culture.