Valérie Belin (1964) is a French artist who, after studying art and philosophy, made photography the center of her practice. His work reflects on the relationship between reality, representation and artifice through frontal images, serialized and of great formal precision, influenced by minimalism. Since the 1990s, he has introduced the human figure to question identity and simulacrum with series such as Bodybuilders, Transsexuals, Femmes noires or Mannequins. Starting in 2006, he incorporated color and developed a language that he defined as “magical realism”, in which the figure becomes a hybrid between flesh, icon and illusion.

His work has been exhibited internationally in leading institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Musée de l'Élysée in Lausanne and the Kunsthaus Zürich. He has also presented solo exhibitions in museums such as the MuBa Eugène Leroy (Tourcoing) and the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux. In the gallery field, he works mainly with the Galerie Nathalie Obadia (Paris and Brussels) and the Edwynn Houk Gallery (New York).

Awarded the Prix Pictet in 2015 and appointed Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2022, Belin will enter the Académie des beaux-arts in 2026, culminating a career that rigorously questions the nature and power of the contemporary image.