Chris-Ailm Beraet learned to write with a pen and ink at the age of five. He studied Western calligraphy with an uncle when he was around eight years old. At fourteen, he completed a three-year apprenticeship to become a tapestry maker, specialising in sewing.
In the early 1990s, thanks to the artist Anouk, he discovered Chinese writing, which was a revelation for Chris, even though he only studied it for two years with the Chinese calligrapher Ling Hsu. Ten years later, he returned to the study of Chinese writing, also completing his knowledge of contemporary Japanese writing.   In the mid-1990s, in the back room of his small shop, he practised Chinese Xieyi ink painting, which he had learnt from Ling Hsu (a spontaneous style, “Xie” meaning “to write” and “Yi” meaning “meaning”).

From his very first steps in painting, Chris-Ailm moved away from representation based on models, focusing instead on imaginary representations full of energetic movement. For Chris-Ailm, the movement of the hand is a matrix and a gateway to the unconscious. Body language is a poetic exploration of language.
For a time, he followed in the footsteps of Alain Boullet (professor at the École Nationale d'Art de Nice – Villa Arson from 1973 to 2001) introduced by Erika Daviet-Westphal, and the Poetic Abstraction movement (a contemporary pictorial movement of the late 20th century following on from Lyrical Abstraction) of the dissidents of the Nice School.

In 2009, he met the painter Christian Geai, who accepted him into his famous studio on Rue des Ponchettes in Nice. Within a year, he had mastered mural painting (an ancient technique) and trompe l'oeil painting. At the same time, for five years, he studied the techniques of art engraving, contemporary drawing, ceramics and art history at the ÉMAP Villa Thiole in Nice with various artist teachers.

In 2020, he decided to devote himself primarily to calligraphy, but without losing touch with the pictorial practice that greatly influences his art. He continues to experiment with the fusion of writing/body imprint through lines, strokes and gestures, which form the basis of his artistic expression, particularly the styles of Far Eastern cursive writing.

In recent years, he has been seeking to develop a new style of calligraphy that synthesises Latin and Far Eastern (Chinese and Japanese) artistic writing in a contemporary aesthetic. To this end, he studies the writing and spirit of the ancient Chinese masters and the spontaneous styles of Japanese ‘Zen’ writing, which he introduces into his calligraphy and uses to begin the process of stylising our writing.

His ‘writing paintings’ are often described as vigorous, bold and unrestrained, exploring the terra incognita of figurative deconstruction. The structure of his letter-characters and their arrangement reveal a unique contemporary interpretation of free calligraphy. Chris-Ailm's creations merge the discipline of the art of writing with an intimate and immanent dimension of expressive painting.
The Chinese characters he learned long ago are deployed in his new works with a contemporary Latin vision and are no longer to be perceived simply as words designating a given thing, but as the expression of a very personal life evoking joy and liveliness. Lyrical poetry is not far away.

As for Chris-Ailm's daring experiments with his body prints, which he calls ‘moi-peau’ (skin-self), he aims to revive, in the tradition of cave paintings, the spirit of the physical presence of the human body in its purest plastic form.




© Chris-Ailm Beraet, All rights reserved ADAGP - Paris, 2026
Any reproduction or representation of the works presented on this site must be subject to prior authorisation from ADAGP.
https://www.adagp.fr/fr/identities/carte-numerique/827184