Installation View of Somewhere in the Night, the People Dance, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim
Raphaël Barontini, painter and couturier of colonial history, finds fluidity in digital collages
In a recent article for Le Monde, Philippe Dagen explores the rising career of French artist Raphaël Barontini, whose work has quickly gained international recognition. From the Panthéon in Paris to Nuit Blanche, the Currier Museum in New Hampshire, and now the Palais de Tokyo, Barontini’s art continues to travel, soon heading to the Louvre-Lens and Louvre Abu Dhabi. His practice draws on the history of the French Caribbean—his family’s origins—particularly the legacy of slavery, resistance, and Black sovereignty. His current exhibition, Somewhere in the Night, the People Dance, subtly references Aimé Césaire’s The Tragedy of King Christophe, using historical figures like Henri Christophe, Toussaint Louverture, and Solitude not as biographical subjects but as sources for imagined narratives and symbolic representation.
Dagen emphasizes Barontini’s unique process, which merges digital and manual techniques on textile-based formats resembling cloaks, banners, or armor. His research spans global museum collections, allowing him to collage elements from African masks to European painting traditions. Working between two studios in Saint-Denis, he collaborates with assistants from fashion schools to realize his ambitious installations. Despite early setbacks at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, Barontini found artistic freedom in New York, where he was influenced by Romare Bearden and Sam Gilliam. Today, his art is celebrated for its layered symbolism, hybrid aesthetics, and the space it opens for reflection on colonial history and diasporic identity.
