Le Yack
Alexandre Pelletier paints under the name Le Yack. Before the canvas came art school, thirty years of images and a video camera.
The name
A name that came from a microphone
The name goes back to his years as a video reporter. His camera carried a microphone with a big furry windshield to cut the wind. “To me, that thing looked like a yak!”
The nickname was born on shoots and it stuck. When he came back to painting, it was the natural bridge between his life behind the camera and his life as a painter. It is also written Leyack.
Before
Art school, then thirty years of images
His mother was a painter, so painting came into the house early. He then trained at the Orléans School of Fine Arts, learning observational drawing, perspective, the chemistry of colour, the smell of oil and turpentine, brushwork and glazes.
He went on to spend nearly thirty years as an art director in publishing. Graphic designer, illustrator, video maker: thirty years of composing images, balancing colours and telling stories within a frame. That is where the eye you find in his paintings was sharpened.
After Covid
Back to the canvas
Time stood still, and he reopened his old boxes of student sketches. The urge to get his hands back into paint was immediate.
He set himself a challenge: some thirty paintings in one year, for a first gallery show at L’Empreinte Galerie in Orléans. About a third of the works found buyers. But it was above all the conversations with visitors that convinced him to carry on.
First paintings
From spray can to oil
His first works turned classical painting around with the energy of street art: spray paint, Posca markers, acrylic and oil meeting on the same canvas. That was the art director in him speaking, the punch of the image.
Over time his work moved towards a quieter, more introspective neo-realism, painting in the full sense of the word. He starts again from the academic grounding he masters to make something contemporary. Today he paints in oil on canvas, and names his influences: Edward Hopper, photography, cinema and retro style.
Today
What he paints
Contemplative figures, journeys, moments of solitude or of meeting. A woman in a phone box in the rain, a man leaning on a red convertible at a petrol station lost in the desert, seven people sitting on a steel beam above the city.
His scenes are staged like film shots, framed to the millimetre and crossed by a light that tells the story. They stop just before or just after something happens. What comes next is for the viewer to write.
Family
The Atelier Joconde
In Orléans he founded the Atelier Joconde with his two sons, both painters: Popsan, whose name is William San, and Neo Pablo. Three signatures, three worlds, one gallery.
Together they show at contemporary art fairs: Nantes, Monaco, Luxembourg, and soon Brussels. On the stand, the sign reads “Atelier Joconde, Fine Art Canvas by Le Yack”.
Commissions
Your story, in oil
He also paints on commission, mostly cars. People send him photos of theirs; he places it in a scene and turns it into a painting.
Exhibitions
Where to see his work
- 12 – 14 February 2027art3f NantesNantes · with the Atelier JocondeUpcoming
- 20 – 22 November 2026art3f BruxellesBrussels, Belgium · with the Atelier JocondeUpcoming
- 10 October – 1 November 2026119ᵉ Salon des Artistes OrléanaisOrléans · two paintings, on the theme “Entre 2 rives”
- 2 – 4 October 2026art3f LuxembourgLuxexpo The Box, Kirchberg · with the Atelier Joconde
- 11 – 13 September 2026art3f MonacoChapiteau de Fontvieille · with the Atelier Joconde
- 6 – 8 March 2026art3f NantesNantes
- First exhibitionL’Empreinte GalerieOrléans · some thirty paintings made in a single year
A painting, a commission, an exhibition?Le Yack answers personally, from his studio in Orléans.
Contact Le Yack