Chalkboard In Your Face

Laurent Proneur — a French-born American painter and well-known street artist — describes his paintings and other works as a “neoteric experiment in fine art graffiti.” Raised in a family of circus performers, the visual artist and music producer has been surrounded by creativity since he was a child.

Proneur trained as an acrobat and juggler prior to his teenage years, so that he might join his family members as they traveled to perform in circuses all over Europe. It wasn’t long before Proneur would discover graffiti on the streets of Paris. 

Proneur eventually adopted the subversive art form as a way for him to express himself and during the mid-1980s began tagging alongside widely known street artists such as Jonone 156 and Futura 2000 — names he cites as influences today alongside the likes of Jackson Pollock and Pablo Picasso. As street art has long been part of the hip hop culture in the United States, rap music and production also became integral to Proneur’s life. During the 1990s, he established an independent production company, wrote and produced songs for himself and other artists, and worked with labels such as Sony and BMG.

Proneur continued to create works of street art over the years, gaining recognition among the other active artists in France and earning acclaim in a book published by Paris Tonkar magazine, a publication that covers street art in Europe. He studied at the Beaux-Arts de Paris for three years and now works out of his studio in Los Angeles, California. 

In 2017, Proneur collaborated with the German bicycle company Haibike to help raise funds for the youth mountain biking programs of the National Interscholastic Cycling Association. The artist has had group and solo exhibitions at Gallery Montaigne, Terrell Moore Gallery, Maison de la Culture Paris and more.

Find original Laurent Proneur art on 1stDibs

Painting is an art form that has spanned innumerable cultures, with artists using the medium to tell stories, explore and communicate ideas and express themselves. To bring abstract, landscape and still-life paintings into your home is to celebrate and share in the long tradition of this discipline.

When we look at paintings, particularly those that originated in the past, we learn about history, other cultures and countries of the world. Like every other work of art, paintings — whether they are contemporary creations or works that were made during the 19th century — can often help us clearly see and understand the world around us in a meaningful and interesting way.

Cave walls were the canvases for what were arguably the world’s first landscape paintings, which depict natural scenery through art. Portrait paintings and drawings, which, along with sculpture, were how someone’s appearance was recorded prior to the advent of photography, are at least as old as Ancient Egypt. In the Netherlands, landscapes were a major theme for painters as early as the 1500s. Later, artists in Greece, Rome and elsewhere created vast wall paintings to decorate stately homes, churches and tombs. Today, creating a wall of art is a wonderful way to enhance your space, showcase beautiful pieces and tie an interior design together.

No matter your preference, whether you favor Post-Impressionist paintings, animal paintings, Surrealism, Pop art or another movement or specific period, arranging art on a blank wall allows you to evoke emotions in a room while also showing off your tastes and interests. A symmetrical wall arrangement may comprise a grid of four to six pieces or, for an odd number of works, a horizontal row. Asymmetrical arrangements, which may be small clusters of art or large, salon-style gallery walls, have a more collected and eclectic feel. Download the 1stDibs app, which includes a handy “View on Wall” feature that allows you to see how a particular artwork will look on a particular wall, and read about how to arrange wall art. And if you’re searching for the perfect palette for your interior design project, what better place to turn than to the art world’s masters of color?

On 1stDibs, you’ll find an expansive collection of paintings and other fine art for your home or office. Browse abstract paintings, portrait paintings, paintings by popular artists and more today.