Stéphane Nabil Petitmermet (*Lausanne, 1998, He/Him) is an artist living and working in Zürich. He completed a Master’s degree in Fine Arts at ZhDK – Zürich. Recent presentations of his work include: [solo] BBAR - Zürich (2026), [group exhibitions] Rhigini-Fries Foundation, Zürich (2026), MCBA, Lausanne (2025), ZhDK – Zürich (2025), Cabaret Voltaire, Zürich (2024), TrapezRaum – Zürich (2024), Istituto Svizzero Milano (2023), HEAD – Geneva (2023), AveMarie Showroom, London (2021), Limbo - Geneva (2021).
His practice explores familial history, cultural heritage, and aesthetics related to virtuality, understood not only as digital but as potentiality, memory, and alternate realities. The paintings are built with thin layers around specific viewpoints, shaped by strong emphases on both presence and absence. They evoke feelings of nostalgia, melancholy and contemplation. Rooted in Swiss and Lebanese influences, his practice looks for ruptures between fantasy and reality. He positions painting as an anchor amid contemporary media and collective mythmaking, sidestepping nostalgia’s escapist tendencies and its aestheticization of stagnation and decay.

Selected Group Exhibitions

2026
Bliss&Vanities, Espace Amaretto, Lausanne

2026
NewKammer II: Present Positions, curated by Itay Blaish, Righini-Fries Foundation, Zürich

2025
Jardin d’Hiver #3. DECORAMA, curated by Elise Lammer, MCBA, Lausanne

2025
All Dimensions, Diploma show curated by Gloria Hasnay, ZHDK, Zürich

2024
The Red Herring, exhibition in the Artist Bar, curated by Salome Hohl and Monica Unser, Cabaret Voltaire, Zürich

2024
Exhibition of few Paintings, curated by Antoine Félix Bürcher, Trapezraum, Zürich

2024
Soft Launch, book launch, with the help of Judith Welter. Niclas Riepshoff and Shirana Shabazi, ZHDK, Zürich

2024
Semesterfazit, First-year Master Fine Arts students‘ exhibition, ZHDK - Zürich

2023
GIFT, curated by Francisca Patrocínio & Anna Sophie Knobloch, ZHDK - Zürich

2023
Language is the absence of connections where there were no such connections, ZHDK MFA workshop with Beatrice Marchi and Costanza Candeloro, Istituto Svizzero Milano

2023
The Painting Academy, curated by Laurence Favez, galerie PoloMarco, Geneva

2023
LE GRAND TOUR, Diploma Show, curated by Fabrice Stroun and Niels Trannois, HEAD - Geneva

2023
AUX ABRIS, curated by SABL - Live, Civil Protection Bunker, Lausanne

2023
SO FAR, curated by Luca Beeler, HEAD - Geneva

2021
Between Two Launches, curated by Vincent Matushka, Ave Marie Showroom, London

2021
Sandwich Gallery, curated by Behzad Dehno for LIMBO Art Space, Geneva

Education

2023 - 2025
ZHDK - Zürich, Master Fine Arts

2023-2023
HEAD Geneva, Bachelor in Fine Arts, painting department

Other

2025
I Remember Thinking: I’ll Remember This, Master Thesis, written with the guidance of
Judith Welter, ZHDK, Zürich

2023 -2025
Co-director of EGG, Exhibiton space in ZHDK, Zürich

2023
L'Ornement en Peinture, ou la Narration par le Motif, Bachelor Thesis, written with the guidance of Niels Trannois and Claude-Hubert Tatot, HEAD, Geneva

2021-2022
Co-curator of exhibitions in Geneva with the association Laissez-Passer