Born in 1997 in Normandy and based in Paris, Valentin Couanon Bertin is a French artist exploring the concept of magical realism in his still and moving images, whether digital or physical. in 2017, He embarked on a year-long hitchhiking journey across Europe, leading him one year later to Japan through a Working Holiday Visa and South Korea for international student mobility in 2023.
His work exposes the intimate experience of unspoken passions and hiraeth, constructing esoteric narratives that create a non-linear narrative space-time where supernatural, authoritative or independent stories influence reality and its oldest metaphysical questions submerged in the digital realm. He connects his initial practice of drawing to cinema and video art by recalling the ascetic posture of the studio artist through the presence of modeled liturgical signs, a chaotic map of neurotic pencil strokes through a tough, evocative, and wondrous scenography enabled by a disconcerting experimental editing. His work is generously enriched with references to video games, ancient or outdated applied arts as well as internet counterculture.