Art Press Coverage at SEIMANDI & LEPRIEUR Gallery
The gallery in Santa Barbara has been featured in numerous press articles, interviews, and media coverage. These publications showcase our dedication to contemporary French-based and international artists, our exhibitions, and participation in art fairs, highlighting what makes our gallery unique.
A DISTINCTLY FRENCH PRESENCE IN SANTA BARBARA
Santa Barbara Dining & Destinations, FALL / WINTER 2026
"A little over a year after opening its doors, Seimandi & Leprieur has established a distinctive presence in Santa Barbara’s contemporary art scene. Located on West Anapamu Street, on the same block as the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and perpendicular to State Street, the gallery is at the heart of the city’s Arts District. Its 1,400-square-foot exhibition space features 12-foot ceilings, a dramatic street-facing glass façade, and abundant natural light. With an international contemporary art program, a refined French sensibility, and a growing community of collectors and design professionals, the gallery has quickly become a destination for those looking for something beyond the traditional Santa Barbara aesthetic."
"Within our first year, we’ve built a growing community of collectors and art lovers who come back regularly, follow our exhibitions, and often introduce us to new clients. Much of our new clientele comes through word of mouth, which has been one of the most rewarding parts of building the gallery."
"From the beginning, we wanted to bring a distinctly French sensibility to Santa Barbara: refined, contemporary, and understated, with the artwork always at the center. Our goal is also to bring a more international perspective to the city’s contemporary art scene."
TRÈS CHIC, by Isaac Hernández de Lipa
Voice, August 7, 2026
"WITH A BEAUTIFUL RHYTHM, the first anniversary exhibition at Seimandi & Leprieur, YEAR ONE, features highlights from the year old gallery’s journey, as well as new work with an international connection by local artists Mary Heebner and UCSB professor George Legrady. Six artists are represented in the exhibit, all very different from each other, though their work presents well together."
"Fanny Seimandi and Julien Leprieur landed in Santa Barbara in the spring of
2025, children in tow, with the idea of opening a contemporary art gallery with
a French perspective."
"The gallery was a dream come true, especially for Fanny, who had been a judge (primarily in criminal law) in France, before transitioning to the art world and earning a Master’s in Art Market Studies from the Sorbonne, Paris. Julien brings his experience as an engineer to enhance the gallery experience.
ANOTHER VIEWPOINT OR THREE, by Josef Woodard
Santa Barbara Independent, September 12, 2026
"Detto is contending with very real places, in Los Angeles, but also Buenos Aires, Cambodia, Budapest, and elsewhere, but with an abstract impulse in tow. He seems to be on the hunt for the feel and the “secret life” of buildings, in one sense, through cropping and finding visual life in the devilish and Godly details."
"Similarly, the power of “A Wall” plays off of the stark, side-by-side contrast of a rough jagged gray wall in crisp focus on the right of the picture and, on the left half, a soft-focus and clean blue-lined skyscraper.
With this image, as elsewhere in this intriguing show, he unveils dualities and buried conceptual treasures in urban contexts. These pictures also serve more purely as visual games and poetry."
NATURE REVISITED, GALLERY CELEBRATED, by Josef Woodard
Santa Barbara Independent, July 31, 2026
"To Celebrate its First Anniversary, Seimandi & Leprieur Gathers an Array of Work by Artists Gracing Its Walls in ‘Year One’
It was about a year ago that Seimandi & Leprieur braved the challenging world of opening a new, serious, contemporary art gallery in Santa Barbara. Set just off of State Street, on Anapamu, and initially oriented towards fine art from the Caribbean (its married gallerists moved here from Martinique), they had their work cut out for them in terms of gaining traction and due attention.
But they are determined, and the space continues to be both inviting and provocative to seekers of serious art in a sophisticated gallery context. To celebrate the occasion of the anniversary, the current exhibition Year One, presents a summery smattering of work and is also a (pardon the pun) summary show, bringing back work by artists featured here in the first year of the gallery’s life.
It is a healthy and certainly varied assortment of art, but one in which the collected works “hang well” together in the space, conspiring towards collective cohesion as a whole."
NEO-EXPRESSIONIST PAINTER HUNT SLONEM, SPECIAL APPEARANCE, by Josef Woodard
Santa Barbara Independent, May 8, 2026
"N.Y.C. Artist Hunt Slonem Takes Over a Wall at Seimandi & Leprieur with His Characteristic Post–Pop Art Imagery of Bunnies and Birds, and Butterflies to Boot"
"Slonem’s trademark vision as an artist serves as a kind of spritzer for the eye and mind, as art both less and more serious than it seems on impact."
NOTHING IS REAL: ART ABOUT DREAMING, by Josef Woodard
Santa Barbara Independent, April 17, 2026
"Thus far in its still jeune life, the impressively staged and operated Seimandi & Leprieur Gallery has hosted four exhibitions worth spending time with."
"The gallery is giving a ripe forum to a pocket of contemporary art that might otherwise remain obscure on the West Coast. And all in a stylishly appointed gallery space on Anapamu Street. (For local historians among us, this is the former site of the noted ’70s and early ’80s-era folk club The Bluebird.)"
"Shapes of Surrealism is a mostly Martinique-connected gathering of artists whose work in various ways connect to the dream-leaning and rationality stretching concerns in artists dating back to the early 20th century but now a continuing thread of artistic thought. Think David Lynch, in modern terms. Most prominently are the large paintings by Pierre Roy-Camille, informed by his studies of Indian embroidery and alternately referring to plant and urban life. Another boldly pattern-based painting, “Double Dragon,” suggests a fleur-de-lis design gone rogue and “Toxic Tropic” finds a spiky palm lording over the foreground, with an oblique-tiled ceiling pattern overhead. One imagines a hotel in a remote tropical locale, with unstated intrigue lurking in the margins — an unmade film noir vibe."
GARDENS OF VISUAL SENSATION, NIGHT AND DAY, by Josef Woodard
Santa Barbara Independent, January 16, 2026
“ With the gallery’s third show, we get a more close-up — and more expansive — view of one of those artists, Dora Vital, a French-born artist living in Martinique. Her present show Jardin Nocturne serves as both a sweeping gathering of her post-post-impressionist paintings, as specific works and as an atmospheric whole coloring the gallery space itself. To enter the Anapamu Street gallery is to enter into Vital’s world and artistic eye view.
And it is a view both evolving and unified, one with detectable traces of her acknowledged debt to Monet’s garden paintings. As such, there is an interesting cross-venue resonance in the neighborhood, given the proximity of the gallery to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the present blockbuster exhibition in which is an spectacular impressionist feast, The Impressionist Revolution: Monet to Matisse from the Dallas Museum of Art.
But the Monet imprint is more than once removed in Vital’s work, and made personal. Impressions matter here, over realistic accounting of what grows in an imagined garden, by night and day, but the relationships of art and nature and perception are uniquely reworked through the filter of Vital’s vision."
FRENCH CONNECTION, by Laurie Dewhirst Porter
Santa Barbara Magazine, Winter, 2025
"The art scene in Santa Barbara is becoming more global, as evidenced by the recent opening of SEIMANDI & LEPRIEUR GALLERY, helmed by French couple Fanny Seimandi and Julien Leprieur. The couple recently relocated to California after a decade on the island of Martinique in the Caribbean, where Seimandi, who holds master’s degrees in art, served as a judge, and Leprieur worked as an engineer and entrepreneur. Both are extremely passionate about contemporary art, especially work by emerging Caribbean artists who are just starting to receive international recognition. Part of the gallery’s stated ambition is to broaden the visibility of these artists and to present their work in conditions “that match its visual strength and conceptual depth.”
FRENCH TWIST, by Joan Tapper
805 Living, December, 2025
“For that exhibit, Seimandi enlisted fashion photographer and Vital admirer Jen Huang Bogan as cocurator. Bogan chose paintings that “evoke the winter solstice, when daylight is softened yet not bleak,” she says, “and works that serve as an invitation for introspection.” It seems that Seimandi’s and Leprieur’s leap of faith has landed on fertile ground.”
PAINTING THE LIGHT, by Kerry Methner
Voice, December 5, 2025
“Rays of light, dappled gleams of colors and the lush shadows of foliage are layered onto the canvases of French artist Dora Vital. Her work is featured in a solo exhibition Jardin Nocturne at Seimandi & Leprieur Gallery curated by Jen Huang Bogan that opens on 1st Thursday, December 4th."
AESTHETES OF THE CARIBBEAN, by Josef Woodard
Santa Barbara Independent, October 31, 2025
“For its inaugural show, the gallery was given over to the fascinating, quasi-primitive yet erudite black-and-white work of Ricardo Ozier-Lafontaine, in the exhibition Fertilum. With the current group show Whose Paradise? the focus expands to showcase a diverse handful of Martinique-connected artists (some are from the island but now based in Paris), giving a sampling of the breadth of work in that area. Differences of medium, message, and points of view aside, these artists, in various ways, give credence to the show’s subtitle “reimagining the tropical paradise through Caribbean contemporary art.” Another point of commonality is a concern for interpreting natural influences and basking in the inherent beauty of the “paradisiacal” island while seeking
new, cliché-free avenues of expression on the subject."
A REFINED EXHIBITION SPACE
Santa Barbara Dining & Destinations, Fall/Winter, 2025
“What emerged is a thoughtfully curated gallery and exhibition space one that extends their personal story, artistic values and enduring relationships with the artists they represent. With its minimalist design aesthetic, the gallery offers an immersive, distraction free setting for viewers to fully engage with the work.”
“We believe contemporary art still has the power to move, challenge and uplift-when it rejects shortcuts and embraces beauty, depth and rigor. Our gallery champions artists who work with vision and intensity and offers them a space where their work, rich in depth and presence, can resonate fully."
FROM THE CARIBBEAN TO CALIFORNIA, by Maddy Sims, Silas Fallstich
Santa Barbara Life & Style Magazine, November/December, 2025
"For a moment, I could swear I’m in France. But I’m not—I’m in downtown Santa Barbara, at the city’s most intriguing new destination for contemporary art.
Many contemporary art galleries can feel cold or austere, but Seimandi and Leprieur have struck a rare balance between sophistication and sincerity. Despite the space’s polished design and the couple’s ambitious curatorial vision, this sunny corner of Santa Barbara radiates warmth and openness."
"This narrative extends far beyond the current exhibition. The gallery tells a richly layered story of the Caribbean’s small islands, bringing together French, Caribbean, and international artists. At its heart lies a steadfast commitment to foster meaningful conversations between Europe, the Caribbean, and the United States, while embracing the evolving currents of contemporary art."
IMPRESSIVE NEW ART SPACE, by Josef Woodard
Santa Barbara Independent, August 19, 2025
“It is not often that Santa Barbara sees a significant development in new contemporary art spaces and faces, making the arrival of Seimandi & Leprieur a cause for celebration among the city’s art enthusiasts. Open for just a month, the gallery is a welcoming, light-filled space located on Anapamu Street, in a building that decades ago housed the famous Bluebird Café. This landmark of bluegrass and folk music is now a haven for art, with a particular focus on the dynamic Caribbean art scene, beginning with the bold yet subtle black-and-white paintings of Martinican resident Ricardo Ozier-Lafontaine, in an exhibition titled Fertilum.”
About the writer – Josef Woodard, seasoned arts writer and critic, recipient of the 2023 Leadership in Arts Award, Santa Barbara County
Josef Woodard is a renowned arts writer and critic based in Santa Barbara, with decades of experience covering fine art, exhibitions, and cultural events. He has written for the Santa Barbara Independent, Los Angeles Times, Artweek, and Rolling Stone, and has contributed numerous essays to art books and exhibition catalogues. His perspective is informed by a deep engagement with contemporary art and a long history of critical writing in the field.