Jupiter Museum of Art
Curated by Danysz Gallery
3 April to 7 July 2024
Shenzen, China

With M 50 Art Center
July 2023
Chengdu, China

This exhibition invites us to explore the many aspects and possibilities of play throughout the world, through the prism of toys and childhood. In giving imagination power over reality, Seth opens the door to a unique and personal form of freedom.

Through dreamlike installations featuring his encounters with children in Madagascar, Indonesia, Haiti, Ukraine and China, he evokes his travels around the world.

Strolling down Rue Marmaille, scattered with mischievous children, Seth reveals his Paris, where nostalgia meets our contemporary issues. We discover masked sculptures from the four corners of the globe, paintings that dialogue with childhood board games. We pass through a rainbow tunnel, a whirlwind of creativity that opens the door to fantasy and wonder.

Puns come to life, and visitors’ portraits magically merge with Seth’s works.

Musée en Herbe
7 June – 31 December 2023
Paris, France

For the past twenty years, the world has become my playground. My children play with the walls, the architecture, or the culture of the places where I paint them.

I am constantly discovering new territories that inspire me to create new works. By wanting to speak to the people who live where I leave my mark, I force myself to understand and analyse the places I visit. By adapting myself to the walls before painting them, I want to open doors to which each of us has the key.  

The freedom that the canvas gives me allows me to constantly explore new ways of evoking the imagination of childhood. With the vortexes of colour into which I immerse my characters, I want to represent the richness of an inner universe that floods the space. They represent the passage to a new world, the entrance to the rabbit hole of Alice in Wonderland, fly the coop.
-SETH

M 50 Art Center
July 2022
Shanghai, China

Solo exhibition

Galerie Very Yes
Saint-Pierre, Reunion Islands
24 August – 2 Octobre 2021

La Chapelle Saint Sauveur
Rue Saint-Sauveur
35400 Saint-Malo
11 July – 1 November 2020
With Teenage Kicks

It is in the prestigious setting of the Saint-Sauver Chapel, in the heart of Saint-Malo Intra-muros where one can visit Seth’s first exhibition in Brittany, France, curated by Teenage Kicks. Paintings, photos, travel books and installations immerse us into the heart of his artistic journey: from the old alleys of Shanghai to the beaches of Madagascar, each alcove of the chapel gives an account of a journey, a project, an experience. Open for all, this exhibition of poetry and the unfamiliar speaks to each child at heart.

Galerie Itinerrance
24 Boulevard du Général d’Armée Jean Simon
75013 Paris, France
February 6 – April 11 2020

Over the course of his many trips painting walls, Seth has witnessed the incredible resilience of children everywhere. Whether in a school located in war-torn Ukraine, or in a favela beset by cartel violence, children invent imaginary worlds as a way to escape. Despite being a life learning process, play often remains the easiest way to flee from the relentless reality that surrounds them.

For this exhibition, Seth reinterprets some of his creations painted across the world, and speaks to the child inside us all. As he likes to say, his paintings are “doors that open up to imaginary worlds.” They encourage us, for a moment, to look inwards to see the extent of our inner wealth.

We find Seth’s recurring themes, his love of books, toys as an escape tool, or the nostalgia of a disappearing world. The vortex often remains present, which can be understood by each of us as we please: the passage to another dimension, the reflection of the imagination or a representation of the different levels of consciousness. It embodies the rich inner universe that floods space, the door to a new world, like the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland.

It was the neoclassical castle Labottière which houses the cultural institute Bernard Magrez where Seth’s first retrospective exhibition in France was presented.

“1,2,3, Soleil” offers the visitor a glimpse into the world of Seth. Each room of the castle is based on a theme from his various travels, representing a different project in the countries the artist has explored. Over fifty characters developed over the years spent painting in the street will be represented. These characters are represented through Seth’s painting, but also from his photographs that are a reflection of his work in the urban context.
The first floor of the castle allows for an immersive visit, a dive into the universe of the artist. Several creations made in situ, as well as with artists Mono Gonzalez and Pascal Vilcollet, punctuate this visit.

Institut Culturel Bernard Magrez
Bordeaux, France

“Made in Haiti” is an exhibition that traces the quest for children’s creativity on the streets of Haiti, through the eyes of legendary photographer Martha Cooper and Seth. From the shantytown of Soleil to the countryside of the central plateau and through the tradition-steeped Jacmel, the two artists unveil the imaginative wealth of Haitian children, and the power of their resilience.

For this exhibition, Seth presented canvases, installations, and murals throughout the Little Haiti district of Miami, alongside photography by Martha Cooper during their trip to Haiti in March 2019.

Fabien Castanier Gallery
May 2019
Miami, USA

The works presented at the M Art Center Gallery are the result of days spent walking and painting the streets of the last working-class neighbourhoods of central Shanghai. They are the testimony of Seth’s love for the culture’s traditions that are gradually engulfed under glass and concrete towers. It is a way to repopulate the alleys with laughter from the young Shanghainese who once made these their playgrounds. It is a dream of China, intimately linked to childhood and the universal need to escape a world that is more and more incomprehensible.

This exhibition, divided between interior and exterior works, presents various paintings, sculptures, photos and installations inspired by his creations in the alleys of Shanghai.

M 50 Art Center
March 2019
Shanghai, China