The art concept PASSAGES

The cross­roads of abstrac­tion and fig­u­ra­tion, and of pho­tog­raphy and painting.

J-Phillipe’s Balinese Window to a Brotherly Soul

By Jean Couteau [1]

The eye is first drawn to the soft-hued drip­pings of color spread over the paper sur­face. Blots appear here, a gravel-like tex­ture there, vague shapes stand out and then melt away. An impres­sion of calm and peace emanates from the work. It is "abstrac­tion" at its best: a lan­guage of purely visual emo­tions expressed through what looks like a nat­ural color world. Yet, as the eye rests longer on paper, another reading reveals itself, this time fig­u­ra­tive: from behind the pastel wash colors appear the vague, yet finely drawn con­tours of a "clas­sical" Balinese vil­lage scene, both hidden and revealed by the color sur­face. Our emo­tions, awak­ened by the abstract side of the work, are now guided toward the visual enjoy­ment of an idyllic land that hap­pens to be Bali.

It is in the uncanny encounter – and bal­ance between – the worlds of abstrac­tion and fig­u­ra­tion that J-Philippe finds the field of his inspi­ra­tion.

This is no easy endeavour. One of the classic prob­lems encoun­tered by any painter is how to manage line and colour. Is he going to let color orga­nize not only space and com­po­si­tion, by also the shaping of objects and char­ac­ters, or will it follow a rhythm of forms deter­mined by a graphic struc­ture? Reciprocally, can the drawing line retain its autonomy of _expres­sion when its space is “in­vaded” by color? How to achieve a bal­ance? In J-PHILIPPE it is def­i­nitely color that struc­tures the painting. The work is pri­marily abstract; its main pull is the color com­po­si­tion. The scenes super­posed on the color sur­face always follow the basic rhythm of the latter. The drawing line is ever dis­creet, smoothly inserting the Bali theme into a pre-existing mood of the soul. But the intent is never descrip­tive. It is the mood of the soul that dom­i­nates the work. "If I don’t like the wash sur­face I have made," says J-PHILIPPE, "I just don’t carry on. I don’t draw any­thing. I leave the work unfin­ished."

Another classic issue artists face is that of "rep­re­sen­ta­tion". What ought to be the part of the imag­i­nary, of the spon­ta­neous and of objec­tive reality in an art work? If abstrac­tion has its own, usu­ally color-driven "logic", fig­u­ra­tion calls in real­istic and sym­bolic ref­er­ences. In this regard, what can be imi­tated, and what should be "invented"? What about the "realism" of a pho­tograph? To which extent does it reveal "reality" – or the pho­tog­ra­pher’s "eye"? This ques­tion is of no small impor­tance in J-PHILIPPE ’s case, as his draw­ings are based on pho­tographs. Yet, there does not seem to be any problem. His pho­tographs are of very high quality – as those exhib­ited with the paint­ings demon­strate. Their inser­tion as draw­ings enables the rep­re­sen­ta­tion of scenes and phys­ical atti­tudes that are un-thought of in ordi­nary fig­u­ra­tion. Last but not least J-PHILIPPE does not strictly "dupli­cate" pho­tographs, but rather "bor­rows" images from them. There is thus an enrich­ment of rep­re­sen­ta­tion: in the pho­tographs, what he shows is a "selected reality" that becomes an "invented fig­u­ra­tion" in the paint­ings.

A "sen­si­tive" answer to the problem of the encounter of genres, J-PHILIPPE’s paint­ings are exactly at the cross­roads of abstrac­tion and fig­u­ra­tion, and of pho­tog­raphy and painting.

What about the fig­u­ra­tive con­tent? Advocates of con­tem­po­rary art will surely crit­i­cize the artist’s themes: "Bali. Exotic," they will say, without even looking closely at his works. And crit­i­cize it for being the post-colo­nial appro­pri­a­tion, by a for­eigner, of a world ill-known to him. Yes, indeed, but isn’t there still beauty in Bali, which few artists reveal with as much talent as J-PHILIPPE? And why should an artist delve into the pol­i­tics of con­tem­po­rary art if his sen­si­tivity takes him "out­side" and makes him a “marginal” in the modern world. Doesn’t he have the right to find Balinese vil­lage life more coherent and bal­anced than modern life? Doesn’t he have the right, too, to ignore in his work the con­tra­dic­tions and ugli­ness of daily life and ide­alize the aes­thetic and social cohe­sive­ness still found in tra­di­tional Bali?

At a deeper level, J-PHILIPPE’s paint­ings are every­thing but exotic. Exoticism is basi­cally a "misun­der­standing". It under­lines the out­ward dif­fer­ences of a cul­ture, as if these dif­fer­ences rep­re­sented its core, whereas they are simply details. With regard to Bali, exoti­cism hovers around cer­e­monies, offer­ings and the like, all that has con­tributed to the island’s par­adise image. But this is not what inter­ests J-PHILIPPE. The char­ac­ters he rep­re­sents in his works do not sur­prise us by their "oth­er­ness", but instead by the inti­macy they emanate. What he sees in them are ordi­nary bodily ges­tures and a sense of togeth­er­ness. Innocent humans as we all should be. This per­cep­tion of Bali as a land of inno­cence is very per­sonal: J-PHILIPPE does not compel it on us, but instead reveals it, as if little by little, as the back­ground of his color wash. The main quality of the artist here appears, beyond his style and tech­nique: his sen­si­tivity as a man of faith, open to other men and Humanity as a whole.

J-PHILIPPE is not your nar­cis­sistic kind of artist, obsessed by his own work and self. You may meet him many times, yet he will never talk about him­self, and never even hint he is an "artist" with a "mes­sage". He will let you, or others, do all the talking, speak of "art", "expres­sion", "con­cept" and what­ever. But, unknown to all, back in his house in a field not far from the vil­lage of Mas, near Ubud, what will he do? He will enter his small lum­bung (gra­nary) work­shop, shut him­self inside, take a drawing pencil, open his com­puter and alone, launch him­self into the world of his dreams, per­sonal, inti­mate, sen­si­tive, like the works soon to emerge under his hands.

Discretion and sen­si­tivity is indeed the golden thread of J-PHILIPPE. He did not come from France to Indonesia through tourism – to "dis­cover Bali"; nor did he come attracted by eco­nomic oppor­tu­ni­ties – to work. He came instead pro­pelled by faith – to serve. Born to a Catholic family and a grad­uate of the reputed "Ėcole Boulle" – an art and craft school owned by the City of Paris– he came to Bali in 1991 as a faithful young Catholic lay brother, eager to develop a craft school set up in Gianyar by the Catholic com­mu­nity at the ini­tia­tive of a French priest, Father Le Coutour. Once in Gianyar, and soon in Mas, he found in the vil­lage life around him a quiet atmo­sphere that suited his own med­i­ta­tive, highly reli­gious soul. He saw in people around him brothers behaving like brothers, and living in a land where reli­gion is still asso­ci­ated with com­mu­nity life and togeth­er­ness.

The great thing about an artist such J-PHILIPPE – straight, hard­working and dis­creet- is that it is almost cer­tain that he will remain unfazed by fashion and that his future works, what­ever their stylistic evo­lu­tion, will con­tinue having the stamp of sen­si­tivity that is the man’s main quality.

Author : Jean Couteau・ Wednesday 15 March 2006・ pas de comments

Join the conversation

pre-moderation

This forum is moderated before publication: your contribution will only appear after being validated by an administrator.

Who are you?

If you already have an account Please Sign in.

If not

Write your comment

This form accepts SPIP shortcuts [->url] {{bold}} {italic} <quote> <code> and the HTML code <q> <del> <ins>. To create paragraphs, simply leave blank lines.