L'ATLAS

L'Atlas — born Jules Dedet Granel in Toulouse in 1978 — has built a body of work rooted in writing, geometry, and the interplay of optical and gestural abstraction. Immersed in the Paris graffiti scene of the 1990s, he gradually moved away from figuration to explore the inner structure of words and the construction of signs. After studying art history and archaeology, he spent the 2000s deepening his practice of calligraphy and sigillography alongside master calligraphers in Morocco, Egypt, Syria, China, and Japan — a period of rigorous inquiry in which the line became, for him, a form of language.
From 2001, with the support of agnès b., he exhibited alongside leading figures of urban art and developed a visual vocabulary that is entirely his own: compositions built from his pseudonym, abstract writing systems, methodical linework, and a radical commitment to black and white. His work spans intimate formats and monumental scale alike — murals, façades, installations — occupying a singular territory at the crossroads of calligraffiti, geometric abstraction, minimalism, and optical art. He has named this territory Calligraphic Abstraction.
His works have been shown in numerous international institutions. Alongside his practice, he founded Galerie Liminal in Les Lilas, a space dedicated to contemporary forms emerging from urban cultures — an extension of the same commitment to line, structure, and the living traditions of mark-making that has defined his work from the beginning.

Instagram

← Back to artists