William Mapan
Paysages Plausibles
Sketchbook B
Études
Sketchbook A
Distance (LACMA)
Strands of Solitude
COMPUTE: Sinking Patterns
Anticyclone
Paysages Plausibles
Sketchbook B
Études
Sketchbook A
Distance (LACMA)
Strands of Solitude
COMPUTE: Sinking Patterns
Anticyclone
William Mapan (b. 1988, Paris) is a French artist producing abstract, generative art at the intersection of code and painting. His hybrid practice moves fluidly between algorithmic systems and hand-applied paint, often using one to generate the other.
Mapan studied computer science and visual arts at the École Gobelins, where he now teaches creative coding and generative art. His process begins with hand-drawn sketches and sustained visual research before a single line of code is written. The algorithm that emerges from this process is not merely a production tool — it is the artwork itself, a set of authored instructions in the tradition of Sol LeWitt and Vera Molnár, capable of generating an infinite range of outputs while remaining a singular creative act.
Physical works — machine drawings, oil paintings, and layered mixed-media pieces — are manifestations of that system rather than replacements for it. Inspired by Abstract Expressionism and Impressionism, he cites Helen Frankenthaler, Paul Klee, Etel Adnan, Sam Francis, and Matisse as touchstones, and views the computer as an extension of the human hand rather than a departure from it.
Across series including Paysages Plausibles, Anticyclones, Sketchbook A&B, and Distance — commissioned by LACMA through its Art+Technology Lab — his work sustains a concern with memory, personal identity, and the traces of human gesture within computational processes.