Thomas Canto

Thomas Canto is a French contemporary artist. He lives and works between Lyon, Shanghai and Dubai. His work explores the intersections between urbanism, contemporary architecture, and the perception of space through a practice combining sculpture, painting, installation, and site-specific interventions.

Biography

Thomas Canto was born in 1979 and spent his childhood in Nigeria, Paris and Cameroon before settling in Lyon. He was introduced to art at a very young age through a cultured family environment and frequent visits to museums. Early encounters with works by artists such as László Moholy-Nagy, Piet Mondrian and pioneers of Op Art deeply marked his sensibility.
Throughout his self-taught journey, Canto developed key relationships with artists from different generations, including Carlos Cruz-Diez and Xavier Veilhan, enriching his conceptual and visual approach. In conversation with Veilhan, the latter stated: "What you do is a form of distillation: you manage to extract a personal visual language that is both radical and legible." The experience of reproducing Moholy-Nagy’s Composition A.XX was a decisive moment in his artistic construction, both symbolically and formally. As he declares in his monograph: "This work by Moholy-Nagy accompanied me throughout my journey; it has been both a guide and a mirror."
Initially focused on painting, he discovered graffiti as a major turning point: this medium offered a change in scale and grounded him in a physical relationship with architecture. He describes this shift as essential: "Graffiti gave me space, the freedom of gesture, and an instinctive connection to the city, like an extension of the body into space." This practice led him to explore abandoned industrial sites, where his attention turned to structural forms and the architectural memory of place.
His immersion in urban environments such as Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York, and Dubai helped shape a visual language rooted in geometric abstraction and spatial perception. He has been influenced by artists such as Jesús Rafael Soto, Julio Le Parc, Victor Vasarely,Antony Gormley, Tony Cragg and Sarah Morris, as well as architects like Oscar Niemeyer, Le Corbusier, Tadao Ando, and Zaha Hadid.
In 2003, he participated in a residency at Flux Factory in New York, an alternative space fostering experimental creation.
In 2006, he founded the N2O gallery in Lyon, a pioneering space dedicated exclusively to the contemporary scene emerging from graffiti such as Sigi Von Koeding and Hendrik Beikirch The gallery stood out for its commitment to showcasing unique approaches within that movement, at a time when few institutions paid attention to it. The N2O adventure ended in 2009, after contributing to the emergence of a new generation of artists.
Between 2006 and 2010, Thomas Canto frequently traveled to Tokyo, immersing himself in Japanese culture and urban environments. During these stays, he developed a deep sensitivity to the unique spatial balance of the city's landscape. Elements such as the dense network of overhead electrical wires—perceived as additional layers superimposed on the formal structure of the city—left a lasting impression and became a recurring motif in his artistic vocabulary. His exploration of Tokyo also brought him into contact with the architectural philosophies of Tadao Ando, Kenzo Tange, as well as the broader aesthetics of Brutalism and Metabolism, particularly embodied in structures like the Nakagin Capsule Tower.
In 2013, he was invited by curator Magda Danysz to join the ephemeral artist residency at Les Bains-Douches in Paris. This multidisciplinary project brought together street artists, installation and performance practitioners such as Futura, Vhils, Invader, C215, Jeanne Susplugas and Eva Jospin, in an emblematic venue. For this project, Canto created an immersive site-specific piece in which he used anamorphic paintings and wires installed all over the volume of a room. Connecting him with the Op Art collectors audience such as Jean Cherqui.
Following that collaboration, Magda Danysz invited him in 2014, to develop a site-specific installation in the historic Bund 18 building in Shanghai, strengthening his international presence.
In 2015, he participated in Main Street, a major exhibition at the Musée Mohammed VI d’Art Moderne et Contemporain in Rabat, Morocco. The same year, Thomas Canto participated in Artistes à la Une, a group exhibition organized in collaboration with Libération at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris
In 2016, he then created an installation in Wynwood during Art Basel week, engaging with the district’s architectural fabric.That same year, He exhibited at the Centre Pompidou in Paris., a milestone event that emphasized his evolving dialogue with contemporary architecture and perception.It is also during that year that Thomas Canto, presented his first solo exhibition with Matthew Liu Fine arts in Shanghai named Gravitational transparencies
On the installation side, Canto participated in two editions of the Völklingen Urban Art Biennale in 2015 and 2017, at the UNESCO World Heritage site Völklinger Hütte.
In 2018, he was an artist-in-residence at Residency Unlimited and moved to New York, where he furthered his research on architectural space.
In 2019, he joined the artist residency at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai, dedicated to international cultural exchange.
That same year, he participated in the group exhibition Prism Fantasy: New Ways to View Light at Paradise Art Space in Incheon. Alongside internationally renowned artists such as Olafur Eliasson, Lee Bul, Jeppe Hein, Daniel Buren, Gabriel Dawe, Ryota Kuwakubo, Lee Yongbaek, Daniel Rozin, Ivan Navarro, and Bongchull Shin, Canto presented two installations exploring themes of infinity and the perception of light. The show brought together 25 installations by 11 artists, all questioning the role of light in contemporary art. One of the work presented by Thomas Canto is a room in which the physical and the digital are mixing.
Later that same year, he realized a large-scale installation in Shibuya, Tokyo, just steps from the iconic crosswalk, at the Sogo Seibu building. He created a piece engaging with the fast-paced urban fabric of one of the most dynamic neighborhoods in Japan.
A monograph titled Still Lifes of Spacetime was published in 2020.
In 2021 and 2022, two public art projects, in collaboration with Nicolas Couturieux, were created in the Normandy region of France, marking a continued interest in connecting his artistic research with specific territorial and architectural contexts.
Canto starts collaborating with Volery Gallery in Dubai and led by Rom Levy, in 2021.This partnership starts with a group show in which -Canto is showing along Roby Dwi Antono, Ana Barriga, Carlito, Aryoh Toh Djojo, and Richard Wathen.
In 2024, he participated in the inaugural group show at J7 Art Museum. "A posture of space" exhibition, in Shanghai. This group show featured seven artists, including Thomas Canto, Gao Ruyun, Huang Zhe, Lou Ye, LU SISI, Tess Dumon and Nathan Zhou. Each artist had a dedicated room to showcase their unique creative concepts and languages.

Artistic approach

Thomas Canto’s work centers around the contemporary city: its structures, materials, and visual resonances. He uses industrial materials such as steel, glass, mirrors, MDF, Alubond or nylon thread to create installations that question perception and movement.
His works establish a tension between geometric abstraction and architecture, producing immersive environments that invite the viewer to move physically. His recurring use of transparency, reflections, and volume positions his work at the intersection of kinetic and conceptual art.
Through a rigorous visual vocabulary, his pieces aim to make the invisible visible—to materialize flows, tensions, and spatial dynamics inherent in the contemporary world. They evoke both urban chaos and the underlying harmony of architectural structures.
Canto articulates line as the foundation of his visual language, both as a construction tool and a rhythmic vector. He describes his installations as “sensitive architectures”: "I work like an architect without a building, but with the mental structure it requires."
His approach reflects a constant dialogue between surface and depth, between the visible and the perceptible, questioning the viewer’s place and how space can be lived, traversed, and absorbed.
The solo show Architectonic Harmonies received critical attention. According to critic Joana P. Neves, his exhibition in Shanghai "extends a constructivist tradition while confronting it with the contemporary temporalities of image and space."

Selected solo exhibitions

2006: Opening Show, Galerie N2O, Lyon
2007: B Side, Galerie N2O, Lyon
2011: An Other Gravity, ZMART Gallery, Cluj
2012: Gravité B, Galerie Australe, La Réunion
2014: Transparent Landscapes, Atelier des Bains, Geneva
2015: Still Lifes of Spacetime, Wunderkammern Gallery, Rome
2016: Gravitational Transparencies, Matthew Liu Fine Arts, Shanghai
2016: Suspended Landscape, Art Central, Hong Kong
2017: Illusory Perspectives, Centre Pompidou, Paris
2017: Structuring Shadows, RX Gallery, Paris
2018: Temporal Geometries, Bermel Von Luxburg Gallery, Berlin
2019: Chiasma, Matthew Liu Fine Arts, Shanghai
2019: Structural Reverberations, Sogo Seibu, Tokyo
2022: Etherealities, Volery Gallery, Dubai
2023: Architectonic harmonies, Matthew Liu Fine Arts, Shanghai

Selected group exhibitions and art fairs

2006: Sculptures, Lyon Dance Biennale
2007: Short film, Fête des Lumières, Lyon
2008: Mural, Keith Haring retrospective, MAC Lyon
2011: Group exhibition, Clément Foundation, Martinique
2011: Performance, French Cultural Center, San Salvador
2012: Les Bains-Douches residency, Paris
2012: Screening of All Senses short film, Palais de Tokyo, Paris
2013: Installation, Jean Cherqui Collection, Paris
2014 : Look Through, Bund 18 Shanghai
2014: Nuit Blanche, Danysz Gallery project, Paris
2014: Outdoor Urban Art Festival, Rome
2015 : Summer group show, Matthew Liu fine arts, Shanghai
2015: Artistes à la Une, Palais de Tokyo, Paris
2015: Main Street, Mohammed VI Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rabat
2015: Urban Art Biennale, Völklingen
2015: Installation, K11 Foundation, Wuhan
2018: Objet Impossible, Duo show with Rero, Hangar 107, Rouen
2018: Luxembourg Art Week 2018
2019: Prism Fantasy, Paradise Art Space, Incheon
2020: Beijing Contemporary, Beijing
2020: Group show, Matthew Liu fine arts, SHnaghai
2021: American Psycho, Volery Gallery, Dubai
2021: PhotoFair Shanghai
2022 : KIAF, Seoul
2023 : DnA, Matthew Liu fine arts, Shenzhen
2023 : West Bund art and design, Matthew Liu fine arts, Shanghai
2023: ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair
2023: West Bund Art & Design, Shanghai
2024 : J7 Art museum, Shanghai
Art Paris, Paris

Public and site-specific installations

Celestial blasts and Rythmic vertigos, Völklingen, 2015 & 2017
Extended horizon, Miami, 2016
Concrete Expansion, Rouen, 2022
Levitating Structured Inertia, Paradise City, Incheon, 2019
Exponential Urban symphonies, Paradise City, Incheon, 2019
Gravitational inertia infinity, Shenzhen, 2017
Structuring Shadows, RX Gallery, Paris, 2017
Illusory perspectives, Centre Pompidou, 2016.

Public collections

Watson library, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
K11 Foundation
Fosun Foundation
Several of his exhibition catalogues and art editions, including the monograph Still Lifes of Spacetime, are archived at the Bibliothèque nationale de France as part of the legal deposit.

Publications

Still Lifes of Spacetime, monograph published by Les Presses du Réel in 2020.

Critical reception

Thomas Canto’s work has been featured in both general and specialized media:
My Modern MET, 2022
France info, Les bains douches project, 2013
Le Monde, Les bains douches project, 2013
Libération: A window open to a horizon, 2015
Design Playground, 2015
Arrested Motion Illusory perspectives at Centre Pompidou, 2017
Artprice Positions Berlin, 2019
Forbes, 2016
Design China, 2016
Widewalls, Artist of the week, 2015
Brooklyn Street Art : Review of the exhibition at Wunderkammern, Rome
Arrested motion, Transparent landscapes at Atelier des Bains, 2014
Journal du Design: Feature on "Still Lifes of Space Time"
Critical essay about Architectonic Harmonies solo show by Joana P. Neves, 2023
The Paper, China, 2024
French Morning, 2013