Born in 1996 in Paris, Yanis Khannoussi graduated from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris (DNSAP, 2021), where he studied under Dominique Gauthier, Ann Veronica Janssens, and Marc Desgrandchamps. Since 2018, he has led the composite materials workshop there, an industrial foundation that deeply informs his artistic practice.
His approach lies at the intersection of sculpture, painting, and industrial design, in a realm he has made his own: that of pure abstraction, stripped of all subjective elements.
Going against the tide of the figurative revival, Yanis Khannoussi has made a radical choice: that of total abstraction. What he calls the “dematerialization of the gesture” involves erasing all human traces to make way for the pure essence of form. Working with cast resin and automotive lacquer, he treats each piece with alchemical precision: every form is sculpted, filled, and sanded until a finish is achieved whose manufacturing process is hard to imagine.
The use of the air gun, borrowed from the world of automotive bodywork, lies at the heart of this neutralization of the gesture: the tool no longer touches the surface, the hand recedes, and what remains is color alone, in its absolute purity. These works, situated at the intersection of industrial sculpture and sculptural painting, evoke what the artist calls a form of "metaphysics of matter": a transcendence of the surface’s physical state toward something immaterial.
His works are what he calls "blocks of reality": volumes that inhabit architecture rather than merely decorate it. By detaching color from the wall and giving it a physical form, Yanis Khannoussi creates objects that tame light and seem to defy gravity. The reflective surfaces and their varnish treatments incorporate the image of the surrounding world—distorted, altered—like a fragment of reality captured and transformed.
Each piece invites us to question the very nature of the artwork: its presence in space, its relationship to the viewer’s body, and its ability to transform a place.
In 2022, Yanis Khannoussi received the New Talent Award from L'Officiel des Galeries & Musées at the Salon Réalités Nouvelles. That same year, he was a finalist for the Panthéon-Sorbonne Prize for Contemporary Art. In 2023, his work was selected for the Sisley Prize.
His exhibition history is closely tied to Galerie Dumonteil, with which he has exhibited in Paris since 2022 ("What the Horizon Hides from Us"), then in Shanghai in 2024 ("French Touch"), and at West Bund Art & Design in 2022 and 2024. In 2025, he presented “Gradient Dystopia, ” his first solo exhibition in China, at Galerie Dumonteil Contemporary in Shanghai.
His collaboration with Maison du Whisky demonstrates how his work transcends the confines of the white cube: his organic forms and bold blocks of color have breathed new life into the traditional bottle’s aesthetic, imbuing this everyday object with a unique sculptural quality.
Yanis Khannoussi's world is one of uncompromising abstraction.
Organic forms with smooth surfaces like metal skins, blocks of color that seem to float against the wall, shapes whose edges remain elusive: his pieces command attention through the sheer power of masterfully crafted material.
What sets his work apart is the invisibility of the process. Where other artists emphasize the act of creation, Yanis erases it. What remains is form in its absolute purity, stripped of all traces.
