The Cosmic Breath of Jean-Noel Chazelle By Estelle Arielle Bouchet
Jean-Noël Chazelle's work, quite as both "el" of his
name, who chant at once a creative space where the
Sacred is relieved by the double root " El ", the Hebraic
naming of God, transposes us into a journey of
freedom and space among the cosmic breath of a
universal consciousness, free from any rational, ground
and uncluttered constraint of any ancestral suffering,
pathos recurring and egotique which has for unique
destination the confinement and the fold on one in the
fear of the other one and of tomorrow.
name, who chant at once a creative space where the
Sacred is relieved by the double root " El ", the Hebraic
naming of God, transposes us into a journey of
freedom and space among the cosmic breath of a
universal consciousness, free from any rational, ground
and uncluttered constraint of any ancestral suffering,
pathos recurring and egotique which has for unique
destination the confinement and the fold on one in the
fear of the other one and of tomorrow.
The work of Jean-Noël Chazelle is situated to the
antipodes of such a fear
.
antipodes of such a fear
.
Such a cosmic flight, suggested also by the homophony
of both wings of his name, baudelairien and inspired
Albatross:
of both wings of his name, baudelairien and inspired
Albatross:
" The Poet is the similar to the Prince of Thick clouds
Which haunts the storm and laughs at the archer ",
The artist revisits the big myths which populated our
civilizations to update them and make them live again
in the infinity so bringing to light the unchanging and
eternal character Metaphysical questions. Horus facing
vacuity welcomes us in this aesthetics the dramatic art
of which draws its strength from the balance between
the space and the material, the shade and the light in
Interior Life-Exterior Life.
civilizations to update them and make them live again
in the infinity so bringing to light the unchanging and
eternal character Metaphysical questions. Horus facing
vacuity welcomes us in this aesthetics the dramatic art
of which draws its strength from the balance between
the space and the material, the shade and the light in
Interior Life-Exterior Life.
The Main part being in the Invisible this space,
metaphor prégnante of the Invisible and some Ether
where so many messages are audible for the one who
knows how to listen to, so drawing from the
inexhaustible and pure source of the ataraxie and the
peace.
metaphor prégnante of the Invisible and some Ether
where so many messages are audible for the one who
knows how to listen to, so drawing from the
inexhaustible and pure source of the ataraxie and the
peace.
The material, as for her embodies this feminine
strength and parent in incandescent chromatic codes
(red, his, now, pink tyrien) being able to announce also
unverifiable elements and in fury if we do not respect
the Nature and its foundations. The artist Jean-Noël,
such a modern and learned alchemist, cheek of these
understandable and shows us that everything is
possible, everything is still recoverable and it in spite of
the Japanese seïsme, The blackness of a nuclear threat
which would make, in a definitive way, the human fate
fall towards a ground hell.
strength and parent in incandescent chromatic codes
(red, his, now, pink tyrien) being able to announce also
unverifiable elements and in fury if we do not respect
the Nature and its foundations. The artist Jean-Noël,
such a modern and learned alchemist, cheek of these
understandable and shows us that everything is
possible, everything is still recoverable and it in spite of
the Japanese seïsme, The blackness of a nuclear threat
which would make, in a definitive way, the human fate
fall towards a ground hell.
This freedom outside any dogmatism and the divine
gasoline of which is suggested by the visionary volutes
and the layouts inspired by its works draws its
strength from this maieutics in the Socratic sense of
the term, looking indefatigably in the balance between
the material(subject) and the space for an answer to
our existential questions and to the fate of the human
soul.
gasoline of which is suggested by the visionary volutes
and the layouts inspired by its works draws its
strength from this maieutics in the Socratic sense of
the term, looking indefatigably in the balance between
the material(subject) and the space for an answer to
our existential questions and to the fate of the human
soul.
As Horus in this initiatory and sublime journey finding
its strength and its unity in the breath of love of Isis
, embodying the feminine strength of our Earth,
Chazelle is rash. The chromatic load and the
dramaturgic strength of its work is already in itself an
incantation towards the Divine and an Invitation in the
Journey, that of the Universe more adapted to the man
in its humanity and its quest of balance and love.
its strength and its unity in the breath of love of Isis
, embodying the feminine strength of our Earth,
Chazelle is rash. The chromatic load and the
dramaturgic strength of its work is already in itself an
incantation towards the Divine and an Invitation in the
Journey, that of the Universe more adapted to the man
in its humanity and its quest of balance and love.
Par Estelle Arielle Bouchet
L’œuvre de Jean-Noël Chazelle, tout comme les deux « el » de son nom, qui scandent d’emblée un espace créatif où le Sacré est relayé par la double racine « El », dénomination hébraïque de Dieu, nous transpose dans un voyage de liberté et d’espace parmi le souffle cosmique d’une conscience universelle, libérée de toute contrainte rationnelle et terrestre, épurée de toute souffrance ancestrale, pathos récurrent et egotique qui a pour unique destination l’enfermement et le repli sur soi dans la peur de l’autre et de demain.
Le travail de Jean-Noël Chazelle se situe aux antipodes d’une telle crainte.Tel un envol cosmique, suggéré aussi par l’homophonie des deux ailes de son nom, Albatros baudelairien et inspiré :
« Le Poète est pareil au Prince des Nuées
Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l’archer »,
l’artiste revisite les grands mythes qui ont peuplé nos civilisations pour les réactualiser et les faire revivre à l’infini mettant ainsi en lumière le caractère immuable et éternel des questions métaphysiques. Horus facing vacuity nous accueille dans cette esthétique dont la dramaturgie puise sa force dans le balancement entre le vide et la matière, l’ombre et la lumière dans Interior Life-Exterior Life.
L’Essentiel étant dans l’Invisible ce vide, métaphore prégnante de l’Invisible et de l’Ether où tant de messages sont audibles pour celui qui sait écouter, puisant ainsi à la source intarissable et pure de l’ataraxie et de la paix.
La matière, quant à elle incarne cette force féminine et génitrice dans des codes chromatiques incandescents (rouge, sienne, or, rose tyrien) pouvant annoncer aussi des éléments incontrôlables et en furie si l’on ne respecte pas la Nature et ses fondements. L’artiste Jean-Noël, tel un alchimiste moderne et savant, joue de ces intelligibles et nous montre que tout est possible, tout est encore récupérable et ce malgré le seïsme japonais, la noirceur d’une menace nucléaire qui ferait chuter de manière définitive la destinée humaine vers un enfer terrestre.
Cette liberté hors de tout dogmatisme et dont l’essence divine est suggérée par les volutes visionnaires et les mises en forme inspirées de ses œuvres puise sa force dans cette maïeutique au sens socratique du terme, cherchant inlassablement dans le balancement entre la matière et le vide une réponse à nos questions existentielles et à la destinée de l’âme humaine.
Tel Horus dans ce voyage initiatique et sublime
retrouvant sa force et son unité dans le souffle
d’amour d’Isis, incarnant la force féminine de notre
Terre, Chazelle est téméraire. La charge
chromatique et la force dramaturgique de son
œuvre est déjà en soi une incantation vers le Divin
et une Invitation au Voyage, celui d’un Univers plus
adapté à l’homme dans son humanité et sa quête
d’équilibre et d’amour.
L.A.SPLASH-Magazine
Husar Fine Art Review - French Artwork
By Noémie Demol
(Los Angeles, CA) October 3, 2009 - Audis Husar Fine Art, located at the Wilshire Screening Room Art Gallery in Beverly Hills, opened its doors this Sunday, October 3, to the painterJean-Noel Chazelle.
Jean-Noel Chazelle was born in Senegal and currently resides in Paris. He spends his time between Paris, Spain, and the US, where he has an Atelier(the NoAma in Massachusetts). Jean-Noel Chazelle was a performance artist for seven years at the Clédalique Gallery in Cadaques Spain, founded by Salvador Dali himself. There, he met Montserrat Dali, the cousin of the famous painter. In 1997, the French artist began experimenting with acrylic on Plexiglas.
Jean-Noel Chazelle works in multiple mediums (paint, sculpture, photo, performance, installation) and media (photo, film, sound). The paintings below were among those presented at Audis Husar Fine Art
Chazelle’s paintings are a mix between science, philosophy and poetry. His work is centered around the energy transported by light, perpetual metamorphosis, the intemporality. When one first looks at the painting, one sees something that seems to be abstract, but then discovers the combination of the form. One of the particularities of the artist is that he doesn’t use a brush for his painting.
Published Oct 5, 2009
© Copyright 2003-2009 by LA Splash.com
Painter captures the space between us
John E. Mitchell 2009
North Adams Transcript NORTH ADAMS French painter Jean-Noel Chazelle’s paintings are larger than life both physically and conceptually and the artist is finally poised to unleash them for viewing this summer. Chazelle’s work is currently the main attraction in the NoAma Gallery (in the former Delftee building on Route 2), the result of two summer residencies that had him produce numerous oversized works that benefit from the space of the old mill buildings that now house them.
Chazelle’s paintings mix science with philosophy and poetry into a visual alchemy. With a background in performance, he has fashioned a series of paintings that move as much as any human before a crowd -- and change with that movement.
Chazelle’s paintings are huge acrylics on acrylic and Plexiglas, large swashes that transform in a viewer’s perception depending on their placement in the room, the viewer’s vantage point and the direction of the light moving through them. His work changes throughout the day, and the perfect way to view it is through several trips over a 24-hour period. The works are little slices of reality, captured to be viewed by human eyes but still beholden to time.
"I want to work on the retina and the conception of reality," Chazelle in an interview this week. "First I present something that seems to be abstract, and at last when you’re really into it, you discover the combination of the form. I’m talking about a transparency which is in between all of us but is in fact of the exact same matter as what composes us and we never imagine it."
Chazelle embraces science as a prime component in his work not merely for the data it provides, but also for the beauty of its conceptual guidance. "I really think all these researchers have a poetic part that is much more important than what we can figure out," he said.
Optics and the nature of matter are of particular interest to the painter, particularly the way light is manipulated in order to shape the way we see matter. One fascination for Chazelle is the idea that there is no blank space on the quantum level, that everything is filled with matter and that what lies between two humans is really sub-atomic particles fashioned from the very same material as humans. The universe itself is a mass of space stuff pierced by light.
Within that crammed universe, movement is a natural state for particles, but our brains and eyes quantify a reality that is settled and far from kinetic. Chazelle’s wish is to reveal what our brains refuse to allow our eyes to see widen our perception on a sub-atomic level in order to do the same on an emotional and intellectual one. "We’re so much frightened that we like to define the surface of what we see as not moving, really stable, when it is not," he said. "Surface is in fact moving, vibrating, making very strange things, but our brain stabilizes that. I
think the more we are going to grow and develop humanity, the more our perception is going to grow, and I just think the weight, the equilibrium that we have, is something that is ruled by fear."
Chazelle relates this idea of atomic perspective the things unseen because of our place as middle-ground observers of the reality. Humans can see neither the inner nor outer world -- it’s his hope that his paintings work like strings, connecting a larger vision of the universe with a much smaller one, drawing comparisons between those two perspectives and placing man somewhere in there, lost between the two.
"I wanted to have a different vision than a man who was walking on the Earth and looking at everything from the level of the man," he said. "I think we have to watch at things at another level, a cosmogenic level, not only at a man’s level. It’s nearer reality to watch things at a cosmos level than at a man’s level."Chazelle likens the job of a painter with that of a physicist as well as a poet and thinks specifically back to one researcher of his acquaintance whose work perfectly captures his own vision of what a painter does. The scientist was developing a form of matter to be sent up into space in order to trap particles and then bring them back down to Earth for analysis.
"I was thinking that a painter must be the same not only a trap of particles, but a trap of emotions and reality," Chazelle said. "I really think we are an interface between the cosmos and humanity." It’s certainly no mistake that his paintings resemble gigantic versions of the small slides that scientists put under microscopes to observe the hidden world. These are his slices of reality seized for presentation and contemplation. The work plays on the reality of what perception actually is that two people can look at the same thing and not see the same data within it. Chazelle views this as separate but perpendicular journeys toward a similar end a clearer reality.
"The way we symbolize the cross section is going to give the impression that we see different things," he said, "but if we talk more together about all this perception that we have, we’re going to find finally that perception is different for everyone, but the message, the essence of where we are going to is exactly the same." The integral action for Chazelle, though, is to remove the reality from anything that would taint contemplation of it that is, the context that humans put on it. He characterizes this as "putting people in jail mentally" that is,
defining something or someone early on and never swaying from that original definition. Chazelle sees that as limiting.
"I really wanted to go outside the manipulation of history and concepts, because they just regulate our vision and they make us really sad about reality because that’s not enough from what we could consider," he said. He considers his paintings just one tool of perception that can be applied all through life, rather than the only portals to the "real reality," as he calls it. What is true for his paintings is true for the whole of life, you just have to get started looking beyond the surface and then never look at things the old way again.
"I think the same when you are on the countryside or whatever magnificent place you can be," Chazelle said, "and if you see it by the morning, by the afternoon, by the night, your perception is going to be different though that’s the same rock you are looking at. Maybe it’s the beginning of learning what we see and we don’t want to see because it’s still the same."
(c) 2009 North Adams Transcript. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Media NewsGroup, Inc.
by NewsBank, Inc.
John E. Mitchell 2009
North Adams Transcript NORTH ADAMS French painter Jean-Noel Chazelle’s paintings are larger than life both physically and conceptually and the artist is finally poised to unleash them for viewing this summer. Chazelle’s work is currently the main attraction in the NoAma Gallery (in the former Delftee building on Route 2), the result of two summer residencies that had him produce numerous oversized works that benefit from the space of the old mill buildings that now house them.
Chazelle’s paintings mix science with philosophy and poetry into a visual alchemy. With a background in performance, he has fashioned a series of paintings that move as much as any human before a crowd -- and change with that movement.
Chazelle’s paintings are huge acrylics on acrylic and Plexiglas, large swashes that transform in a viewer’s perception depending on their placement in the room, the viewer’s vantage point and the direction of the light moving through them. His work changes throughout the day, and the perfect way to view it is through several trips over a 24-hour period. The works are little slices of reality, captured to be viewed by human eyes but still beholden to time.
"I want to work on the retina and the conception of reality," Chazelle in an interview this week. "First I present something that seems to be abstract, and at last when you’re really into it, you discover the combination of the form. I’m talking about a transparency which is in between all of us but is in fact of the exact same matter as what composes us and we never imagine it."
Chazelle embraces science as a prime component in his work not merely for the data it provides, but also for the beauty of its conceptual guidance. "I really think all these researchers have a poetic part that is much more important than what we can figure out," he said.
Optics and the nature of matter are of particular interest to the painter, particularly the way light is manipulated in order to shape the way we see matter. One fascination for Chazelle is the idea that there is no blank space on the quantum level, that everything is filled with matter and that what lies between two humans is really sub-atomic particles fashioned from the very same material as humans. The universe itself is a mass of space stuff pierced by light.
Within that crammed universe, movement is a natural state for particles, but our brains and eyes quantify a reality that is settled and far from kinetic. Chazelle’s wish is to reveal what our brains refuse to allow our eyes to see widen our perception on a sub-atomic level in order to do the same on an emotional and intellectual one. "We’re so much frightened that we like to define the surface of what we see as not moving, really stable, when it is not," he said. "Surface is in fact moving, vibrating, making very strange things, but our brain stabilizes that. I
think the more we are going to grow and develop humanity, the more our perception is going to grow, and I just think the weight, the equilibrium that we have, is something that is ruled by fear."
Chazelle relates this idea of atomic perspective the things unseen because of our place as middle-ground observers of the reality. Humans can see neither the inner nor outer world -- it’s his hope that his paintings work like strings, connecting a larger vision of the universe with a much smaller one, drawing comparisons between those two perspectives and placing man somewhere in there, lost between the two.
"I wanted to have a different vision than a man who was walking on the Earth and looking at everything from the level of the man," he said. "I think we have to watch at things at another level, a cosmogenic level, not only at a man’s level. It’s nearer reality to watch things at a cosmos level than at a man’s level."Chazelle likens the job of a painter with that of a physicist as well as a poet and thinks specifically back to one researcher of his acquaintance whose work perfectly captures his own vision of what a painter does. The scientist was developing a form of matter to be sent up into space in order to trap particles and then bring them back down to Earth for analysis.
"I was thinking that a painter must be the same not only a trap of particles, but a trap of emotions and reality," Chazelle said. "I really think we are an interface between the cosmos and humanity." It’s certainly no mistake that his paintings resemble gigantic versions of the small slides that scientists put under microscopes to observe the hidden world. These are his slices of reality seized for presentation and contemplation. The work plays on the reality of what perception actually is that two people can look at the same thing and not see the same data within it. Chazelle views this as separate but perpendicular journeys toward a similar end a clearer reality.
"The way we symbolize the cross section is going to give the impression that we see different things," he said, "but if we talk more together about all this perception that we have, we’re going to find finally that perception is different for everyone, but the message, the essence of where we are going to is exactly the same." The integral action for Chazelle, though, is to remove the reality from anything that would taint contemplation of it that is, the context that humans put on it. He characterizes this as "putting people in jail mentally" that is,
defining something or someone early on and never swaying from that original definition. Chazelle sees that as limiting.
"I really wanted to go outside the manipulation of history and concepts, because they just regulate our vision and they make us really sad about reality because that’s not enough from what we could consider," he said. He considers his paintings just one tool of perception that can be applied all through life, rather than the only portals to the "real reality," as he calls it. What is true for his paintings is true for the whole of life, you just have to get started looking beyond the surface and then never look at things the old way again.
"I think the same when you are on the countryside or whatever magnificent place you can be," Chazelle said, "and if you see it by the morning, by the afternoon, by the night, your perception is going to be different though that’s the same rock you are looking at. Maybe it’s the beginning of learning what we see and we don’t want to see because it’s still the same."
(c) 2009 North Adams Transcript. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Media NewsGroup, Inc.
by NewsBank, Inc.
The Depth of an Artist: Jean-Noel Chazelle
The Board of Investment Art recently had an interview with
Jean-Noel Chazelle, an artist that we believe is on the brink
of fame, to ask his views on world and how they reflect in his work. The interview was intriguing at worst, inspiring a pursuit of freedom in a chaotic world.
Jean-Noel was born in Dakar. Leaving Senegal at the age of six, nourished by the complexity of the landscape, the animals and the African myths, he now spends most of his time living between Paris and Spain. In1987, Miette invited him to collaborate at the disco-surrealist Rachdingue Contemporary Art Foundation.
Miette entrusted him with the artistic direction of the foundation for over seven years, where he worked on painting, performance, installation, video, photo, sculpture and poetry.
Among his accomplishment there, he created La Ruche au Papillon, fixed on the terrace at the Rachdingue, a sculpture in metal, and presented "Rose selavy vous dit merci," a performance in homage to Duchamp to his wife, Teena Duchamp.
After being a performance artist for seven years at the Clédalique Gallery in Cadaques Spain, he returned to painting and began experimenting acrylic on Plexiglas in 1997. He describes: “The Clédalique was unique; I made performances for the gallery openings. I had a total liberty. I used to involve people on the street, apiculturists, avant-garde musicians, and Toreros. From performances to painting I learned to integrate the shadow as a part of the body, the re-composition of the form as an interface to human evolution trough the space-time continuum. The return of the fury as a non-subjective reality.”
Our interview started by noting Jean-Noel’s incorporation of human evolution in his work, and asking him to explain how art is reflected in the social climate today.
Jean-Noel: [Human evolution is under the influence the space time continuum. We, artists, defend the essence of human beings throughout their journey, but we do not deal with the historical manipulation or the fall and rise of the industry like most journalists, curators, or art historians. We simply absorb ourselves in our work, blindly operating on the circumferences of the subject. This is the only way for an artist capture the essence of humanity- to effortlessly be the gate of the inner humanity and the outer observers of it.
We do not have sufficient distance to reflect on "official Art" today. Observation is done from retrospect. What will stay from the industrial society? "Contemporary Art" illustrates vacuity and installations to help future historians demonstrate how cynical this “democratic industrial society" was. There are many that attempt to predict what will be said, by offering their opinions now. Yet, as history has taught us, there is danger in this approach. Journalists publishing books thinking they could be writers, designers in museums...The same dangers are repeating... the fascination for icons.
Meanwhile, artists are just working on the conceptions and the extensions of the considerations of reality at this time. We do not do it for those that judge art today, but those that will reflect on in the future.]
Next we moved on to inquire about his description of painting as “a surface of balance between the inner and the outer, the archetype of inner reality.” We asked him to describe his inner reality when he painted “La tempête philosophique scindée par le vide” (the philosophical storm split up by emptiness)?
Jean-Noel: [Distinctions like abstract/ figurative are old. Major 20th century artists have been already involved in killing the subject. The skin is just a filter between the inner and the outer. I’m talking about the invisible and transparent line between the concepts. The transparent and invisible line is made of the same exact matter then the one that conceived by the human body, separating the inner and outer.
With the painting, I wanted to end with Rene Descartes’s philosophy of ‘I think, therefore I am.’ We think trough our body dealing with instincts, and I prefer thinking by walking because I do not forget my animalistic being and the blood that irrigates, or the composition of my brain trying to envision exactly what is happening. How can we refuse the plasticity, the moving, recomposing matter of the brain?
So there is no division between flesh and spirit, abstract and figurative. There is just the fear that splits up human beings, forcing them to make definitions and statements.
The fact is that we are ruled by fears limiting our conception of reality. We are trapped in a certain kind of reality and we think that the chemical imbalance done by our brain has no incidence on the perception, seriously... So I don’t think when I paint. Just like someone who runs, I do the same to write, without thinking because the way you are going to adapt your necessity to run with what you cary and the special techniques you have to find during the time of this unusual run is going to give the dimension of your way
Never listen the echo, it measures the infinity of the capernaum and can influence the way you drum your own walk. A partition of life, the systemic rebirth of the lion struggling the two-headed dragon, just an idea of the frame.]
We asked, next what Jean-Noel would you advise a novice artist trying to build a career.
Jean-Noel: [Be yourself by knowing exactly why you find so much interest inside the work you love and respect. Never loose the fantastic dimension of having fun while doing something. Your style is going to be work on a better level and to last longer then serious methodical and pragmatic artists.
A true piece of art has no price and if the price is expensive it's because of the
Life and the time an artist dedicated on being suspended, trying to find a valid approach to creating it.
I decided prices long time ago and I refused to sale for cheap. Better not sell.
But please never forget that success for an Artist mean to be influential, so to be imitated. It has nothing to do with how much and how many.]
Lastly we asked about Jean-Noel’s evolution to success in this current state.
Jean-Noel: [I don’t think that succeeding can be a goal for an artist. The purpose is to maintain a certain autonomous state and to find the resources to produce new work. If the work is essential it will needs more time and probably never been a ‘hit’, but an over sampled & remixed synthesis years after. The main problem is: How are you going to be digested, assimilated. Artists have to keep Paradoxes and complexity alive. And that's the very thirst things they will ask you to eliminate if you want success.
Being mentally outside of the current state is the best and having serious already dead artist references is indispensable.
Having no money for an artist is just a way to be confronted and to experiment more, but later in his journey, he will have to finance master pieces and can't stay with generic materials if he wants to renewal his style and work.]
So what is next for Jean Noel?
Jean-Noel: [I have ambitious projects a giant double piece of 12 ' by 57' for Museum called "way of the crossing" a large corridor installation. I want to develop Lexon giants sculptures and I have no stable place to work in Europe- just a giant studio in the US. I will create a new European series at the exact place Antonin Artaud and Camille Claudel were abandoned for my Monaco Representation.]
Jean-Noel leaves us with a final quote...
"Perceptions envision reality, a blind speed projection in the unknown as an action drawing. The use of vertigo as a major strength to a vertical ascension. The myth in the hand."
Jean-Noel Chazelle, an artist that we believe is on the brink
of fame, to ask his views on world and how they reflect in his work. The interview was intriguing at worst, inspiring a pursuit of freedom in a chaotic world.
Jean-Noel was born in Dakar. Leaving Senegal at the age of six, nourished by the complexity of the landscape, the animals and the African myths, he now spends most of his time living between Paris and Spain. In1987, Miette invited him to collaborate at the disco-surrealist Rachdingue Contemporary Art Foundation.
Miette entrusted him with the artistic direction of the foundation for over seven years, where he worked on painting, performance, installation, video, photo, sculpture and poetry.
Among his accomplishment there, he created La Ruche au Papillon, fixed on the terrace at the Rachdingue, a sculpture in metal, and presented "Rose selavy vous dit merci," a performance in homage to Duchamp to his wife, Teena Duchamp.
After being a performance artist for seven years at the Clédalique Gallery in Cadaques Spain, he returned to painting and began experimenting acrylic on Plexiglas in 1997. He describes: “The Clédalique was unique; I made performances for the gallery openings. I had a total liberty. I used to involve people on the street, apiculturists, avant-garde musicians, and Toreros. From performances to painting I learned to integrate the shadow as a part of the body, the re-composition of the form as an interface to human evolution trough the space-time continuum. The return of the fury as a non-subjective reality.”
Our interview started by noting Jean-Noel’s incorporation of human evolution in his work, and asking him to explain how art is reflected in the social climate today.
Jean-Noel: [Human evolution is under the influence the space time continuum. We, artists, defend the essence of human beings throughout their journey, but we do not deal with the historical manipulation or the fall and rise of the industry like most journalists, curators, or art historians. We simply absorb ourselves in our work, blindly operating on the circumferences of the subject. This is the only way for an artist capture the essence of humanity- to effortlessly be the gate of the inner humanity and the outer observers of it.
We do not have sufficient distance to reflect on "official Art" today. Observation is done from retrospect. What will stay from the industrial society? "Contemporary Art" illustrates vacuity and installations to help future historians demonstrate how cynical this “democratic industrial society" was. There are many that attempt to predict what will be said, by offering their opinions now. Yet, as history has taught us, there is danger in this approach. Journalists publishing books thinking they could be writers, designers in museums...The same dangers are repeating... the fascination for icons.
Meanwhile, artists are just working on the conceptions and the extensions of the considerations of reality at this time. We do not do it for those that judge art today, but those that will reflect on in the future.]
Next we moved on to inquire about his description of painting as “a surface of balance between the inner and the outer, the archetype of inner reality.” We asked him to describe his inner reality when he painted “La tempête philosophique scindée par le vide” (the philosophical storm split up by emptiness)?
Jean-Noel: [Distinctions like abstract/ figurative are old. Major 20th century artists have been already involved in killing the subject. The skin is just a filter between the inner and the outer. I’m talking about the invisible and transparent line between the concepts. The transparent and invisible line is made of the same exact matter then the one that conceived by the human body, separating the inner and outer.
With the painting, I wanted to end with Rene Descartes’s philosophy of ‘I think, therefore I am.’ We think trough our body dealing with instincts, and I prefer thinking by walking because I do not forget my animalistic being and the blood that irrigates, or the composition of my brain trying to envision exactly what is happening. How can we refuse the plasticity, the moving, recomposing matter of the brain?
So there is no division between flesh and spirit, abstract and figurative. There is just the fear that splits up human beings, forcing them to make definitions and statements.
The fact is that we are ruled by fears limiting our conception of reality. We are trapped in a certain kind of reality and we think that the chemical imbalance done by our brain has no incidence on the perception, seriously... So I don’t think when I paint. Just like someone who runs, I do the same to write, without thinking because the way you are going to adapt your necessity to run with what you cary and the special techniques you have to find during the time of this unusual run is going to give the dimension of your way
Never listen the echo, it measures the infinity of the capernaum and can influence the way you drum your own walk. A partition of life, the systemic rebirth of the lion struggling the two-headed dragon, just an idea of the frame.]
We asked, next what Jean-Noel would you advise a novice artist trying to build a career.
Jean-Noel: [Be yourself by knowing exactly why you find so much interest inside the work you love and respect. Never loose the fantastic dimension of having fun while doing something. Your style is going to be work on a better level and to last longer then serious methodical and pragmatic artists.
A true piece of art has no price and if the price is expensive it's because of the
Life and the time an artist dedicated on being suspended, trying to find a valid approach to creating it.
I decided prices long time ago and I refused to sale for cheap. Better not sell.
But please never forget that success for an Artist mean to be influential, so to be imitated. It has nothing to do with how much and how many.]
Lastly we asked about Jean-Noel’s evolution to success in this current state.
Jean-Noel: [I don’t think that succeeding can be a goal for an artist. The purpose is to maintain a certain autonomous state and to find the resources to produce new work. If the work is essential it will needs more time and probably never been a ‘hit’, but an over sampled & remixed synthesis years after. The main problem is: How are you going to be digested, assimilated. Artists have to keep Paradoxes and complexity alive. And that's the very thirst things they will ask you to eliminate if you want success.
Being mentally outside of the current state is the best and having serious already dead artist references is indispensable.
Having no money for an artist is just a way to be confronted and to experiment more, but later in his journey, he will have to finance master pieces and can't stay with generic materials if he wants to renewal his style and work.]
So what is next for Jean Noel?
Jean-Noel: [I have ambitious projects a giant double piece of 12 ' by 57' for Museum called "way of the crossing" a large corridor installation. I want to develop Lexon giants sculptures and I have no stable place to work in Europe- just a giant studio in the US. I will create a new European series at the exact place Antonin Artaud and Camille Claudel were abandoned for my Monaco Representation.]
Jean-Noel leaves us with a final quote...
"Perceptions envision reality, a blind speed projection in the unknown as an action drawing. The use of vertigo as a major strength to a vertical ascension. The myth in the hand."
