Jean-Michel JOUILLAT (1955-1999). The Smoker. Oil on canvas - Lot 526

Jean-Michel JOUILLAT (1955-1999). The Smoker. Oil on canvas signed lower left. 80 x 80 cm. The dispersal of part of Jean-Michel JOUILLAT's (1955-1999) studio collection has rescued a subtle and endearing artist from unjust oblivion. The artist is both painter and poet, and his graphic work revolves around two radically different poles: abstraction and realism. In this second vein, his essential themes are characters and domestic interiors. Influenced by surrealism, he likes unusual framings influenced by photography, and his empty interiors are often depicted at night, creating an atmosphere of strangeness, unease and mystery... Light, natural or more often artificial, can sometimes seem the real subject of his painting: he uses it to sculpt volumes, create contrasts and color amplifications that aestheticize and distance the apparent banality of everyday life. Space is often extended by a door, window or staircase, or conversely shortened by a close-up of an object. Mirrors, paintings placed on the floor, windows opening onto a landscape or doors opening onto another room are all mise en abîme. Elements such as a cup of coffee, a glass of wine or a cigarette still smoking suggest human presence in the "negative" form of temporary absence, suggesting that an event has just occurred or is about to occur, in the tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson's "decisive moment". His characters are also marked by strangeness, expressing questioning, reverie, melancholy or even diffuse eroticism. Some of his paintings are accompanied by poems that explain his approach, as are the titles, which are generally much more evocative than descriptive. Jean-Michel JOUILLAT has exhibited in numerous salons, notably in Paris (Salon des Indépendants, Salon d'Automne, Salon des Artistes français), as well as in galleries. A booklet entitled Jean-Michel JOUILLAT : peintures et écrits - un autre exil ... will be given to the purchaser. Each painting in the booklet is accompanied by a short poem by the artist and a title. As a preamble, another poem, reproduced below, gives the viewer a few keys to his approach, helping him to enter his complex poetic and pictorial universe: "Il s'est passé quelque-chose ... Something will happen ... A singular event has taken place, or is about to take place. Something imprecise; There is an undefined fragrance in the air, A certain music ... Light presides, it is queen, But shadow sometimes triumphs. Create a mystery, leave clues, simple, familiar objects: A glass, a carafe, a book, the newspaper or the telephone, More often, fruit; the anchor point for access to the explosion. Perspectives; light and shadow, accompanied by color, structure space, cut it up, slice it, take us away from reassuring landmarks. Fabric is always present, the sensuality of discarded, rolled-up fabrics, Forgotten sheets; soft carpets jostled, pleated. Life is here... The moment is suspended. Is it dawn, the star at its zenith, or is it twilight? Maybe sometimes night, but never a dark night. The stench of chance; the staging thus offered, echoing the reflections, sensibilities and history of each individual. A work of art only exists through the way we look at it; If it questions us, if it makes us experience sensations! Each glance is unique. Open your eyes, smell the aromas of time, listen... The windows are open, sometimes revealing landscapes often foreign to the place where we discover them. It's not cold, even though we may be in the north, And never the sweltering heat. This is not inscribed; It doesn't matter: Where are we? Push open the doors, they're ajar, the stairs beckon; perhaps they lead nowhere. Elsewhere ... On the other side of the mirrors, whose presence reflects back to us distorted, partial fragments or the unknown. Enter "