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Jean-François Blanc
by Lene Pels Jorgensen
The first time J.F. BLANC ever exhibited his work was in a local competition in his native France. After receiving a warm reception from the public, Blanc found himself totally unprepared for the jury’s reaction to his efforts. It turned out that his paintings, consisting of female nudes, had put him into a tricky predicament with the panel. Not that they were offended. To the contrary, they were impressed - too much so. They refused to believe that such mature work could possibly have been painted by someone of his age - a tender seventeen at the time. The ‘Little Painter’ competition, created specifically for budding artists under the age of eighteen, was not going to be compromised by giving the top award to what was clearly an experienced artist using a child as a front. Needless to say, Blanc was the experienced artist in question - from the age of 11 he had been painting the human form, which to this day remains his primary inspiration. Prizes notwithstanding, in the end Blanc’s confidence in his burgeoning talent was bolstered by the incident in a meaningful way. The human body, both male and female, has been Blanc’s overriding obsession throughout his career, his motif if you will. It has presented him with an inexhaustible challenge inspiring myriad interpretations ranging from the figurative to the abstract. Blanc has stated that his work is about capturing a given moment rather than movement, his goal being to hold both subject and viewer up to the lens of their respective emotional states. In all of his work there is an interplay between inner life and outer form. In addition, the emotions portrayed, be they tranquil, tormented or rapturous, are invariably reflected by or at odds with the elaborate settings in which Blanc chooses to place his subjects. In other words, for Blanc the so called ‘background’ is as primary and crucial as his ‘focal point’, or subject. Texture is in fact often the foundation and impetus for him in his work. Not surprisingly it was also his artistic initiation in terms of formal training. In 1973 Blanc graduated Yves Derval’s Art Academy in La Rochelle, France, where he was schooled in the techniques of decorative faux finish and theatre decor. Since then Blanc has showed in major cities such as Paris, Lille, Lyon, New York and Los Angeles, where he has resided for the past decade. Blanc travelled extensively in South America where he was exposed to the confluence of papier maché and painting. He has since incorporated it into his repertoire of skills, making it an integral part of his work in both painting and more recently sculpture. Life sized in scale, his figures are molded with recycled paper & gesso. Painted they give the illusion of bronze or plaster. The influence of papier maché in his canvases has led him to work in mixed media acrylic and oil, the medium he uses most often these days. The earth tones in his most recent work, combined with the third dimension created by folded paper, evoke primal landscapes, calling forth images of underground caves. The seductive mystique and power conjured by these settings complements the strength and simplicity of his subjects. Having found the human form the ideal vessel for the embodiment of tolerance and compassion, Blanc seeks to awaken these same qualities in the viewer, providing a mirror as it were, into man’s eternal soul. Lene Pels Jorgensen