Beerens

Michael Beerens is a French urban artist and professional diver born in 1984, based in the Paris region. As a teenager he began painting in public spaces in the late 1990s within the graffiti movement, part of the first generation of Parisian writers. In 2007 a serious motorcycle accident left him hospitalised for nearly six months — a period that led him to shift his practice toward more illustrative work.

During a trip to Turkey he discovered scuba diving and at twenty-four qualified as a professional diver, launching a parallel career as an underwater videographer. His two passions merge in monumental frescoes dominated by deep blues, water greens and luminous highlights. Schools of fish, the central motif of his work, become metaphors for social cohesion: "Repeated, moving, united in a collective dance, they become the image of a society capable of evolving together."

In 2015 a commission for COP21 — a swirling school of fish painted on the ground inside a light well — launched his "Deep Light" project. He conceives his murals as "bridges to the sea," reconnecting urban spaces with aquatic nature, and runs school workshops combining artistic creation with marine ecology awareness. His work is visible in Paris and Ireland, and is featured on Artsper.