William Mapanb. 1988

William Mapan is an artist based in Paris who has garnered significant international attention for his generative practice. With a background in software development and visual art, he combines computer science with his passion for pigment, light and texture. He is known for his ability to replicate the materiality of physical materials in his work, transforming the digital canvas into a textured playground of colour and shapes to express himself.

His most notable works include Dragons (2021), Anticyclone (2022), Strands of Solitude (2023) and Distance presented by LACMA in collaboration with Cactoid Labs (2023). Mapan often exhibits an affinity with past titans of art history; in Distance he drew on the abstractionism and use of colour in Paul Klee’s work, in his SOLOS series Sketchbook A and Through Your Eyes, the influence of Matisse’s bold colours and collaged forms is apparent, as is the gestural nature and meditative use of colour of Abstract Expressionism’s action painters and colour field painters respectively.

Alongside his work as an artist and creative coder, Mapan is a professor of Interactive and Creative Design at Gobelins, l’école de l’image in Paris, among the most acclaimed animation institutions in the world.