Little Beings

Août Gallery presents Little Beings, a solo exhibition by the French painter Matthieu Schaeffer, at its Mar Mikhael space on Rue Pharaon. The exhibition opened on 10 September 2026 with a reception from 6pm to 9pm and runs until 1 October 2026, Tuesday to Saturday from 11am to 7pm.

Schaeffer's paintings are hyperrealist depictions of ceramic and plastic animals. The gallery text explains that these subjects, "often inspired by species from his childhood, embody both nostalgia and concern for environmental degradation." By painting living creatures as smooth, manufactured figurines, he "highlights the fragility of ecosystems and the way humans transform nature into aestheticized objects." The exhibition image shows a glossy red fox figurine set against a blue sky.

The gallery links his "precise, almost clinical approach to painting" to a scientific background, while noting that the work remains "infused with themes of memory, dreams, and the passage of time." The paintings, it says, prompt "questions about conservation, artificiality, and the boundaries between the real and the reproduced."

Matthieu Schaeffer was born in 1998 and grew up between Kenya and Paris, where he developed a connection to wildlife that continues to inform his work. He trained as an engineer, studying at EPFL in Switzerland and completing a degree in aerospace engineering in Toulouse in 2021, while keeping a parallel painting practice first developed at the ateliers d'art de Rueil-Malmaison between 2012 and 2016.

Little Beings continues Août Gallery's focus on young international painters and brings Schaeffer's work to Beirut in a solo presentation.