( - ) French artist

" With his look, he could have become cover-boy or crooner "Painting, as life, is a choice of course. Nobody knows where they lead, they are sometimes good, sometimes less, it's the mystery". First, a very happy and classic childhood classic in Nice. Sensitive boy, Jean-Francois loves hanging in museums but do not imagine being an artist himself. Falling in love with the works of Picasso or Pollock, but realizing that he can never afford them the seed of creation begins to germinate. Teenager, in the early 80s, he struggles to find his way, even ignoring the treasure in his hands. In venturing on cross roads, he sometimes goes astray. One time, he lives in Tunisia, strolling tourists in the bay of Hammamet. Back on the coast, his pockets are empty but that rages in his head. To realize the ideas that inhabit him, he must acquire a technique. Hosted in a locksmith shop, he finds a key. Meet the self-taught with steel, and learning to weld to bring out crowds or characters. "Between what they believed and what can be, there is sometimes a margin ! The same goes a painting, we think that painting will be good, and in the end we miss and lose it. It's a lifetime! Whether you are an artist, surgeon, builder or industrial, the same work of the mind and body. At the beginning it's a lot of suffering to achieve the plans he materialize. He can make lace in steel tempered in a bath of silver, and give birth crumpled sculptures, sensual and fluid, "which I never thought, I sculpted a thinker. It arose in a moment of spite. Since I declined and it is enriched over time. " Housed in a workshop at the port of Nice, Jean-Francois tries to paint. His paintings are integrated with its innovative burns. He sawed steel sheets, the works at the mill, burns, welds and torch encrusted the canvas. "All my pieces, I realized fully. It's like mountain ... I must have sensations via unknown paths, and without a net. I have no preliminary sketch, it's a constant struggle with the matter. In 1997, his first work is removed at an auction in Monaco. It was a great time and especially the runway. Following exhibitions at the Grimaldi Forum in Saint-Tropez and its works are also living in a Chelsea gallery in New York (where he is one of the only artists to be young and alive). Its thinkers alongside compositions Arman, Calder or Christo Basquiat. Today, Jean-Francois saw a dream of art, reveling in the exchange with those who adopt his creations. And it seeks to honor the trust established. When the work is ready to leave, he packs and ships, always curious to see it be rocked by the gaze of others ". - Emmanuelle Chardin