“Juxtaposed Emotions”
10 May – 27 June 2026
Frédérick Mouraux Gallery, Brussels, Belgium
Opening Sunday 10 May from 2 to 7 pm
Flavie Durand-Ruel explains to me what a “repentir” (from French) is: a technique in which a painter, dissatisfied with his work, paints over it to erase what he didn’t like.
At first, I had placed a lot of swimmers around her. It was disappointing. It didn’t tell a story, or rather, it didn’t raise any questions: Did they know each other? Did they spot each other? That sort of thing…
I covered them with the sea, except for one man, who is clearly following her. The painting then struck me as much more...
INFLUENCES…
My first real emotional experience as a child, standing before paintings, was GIOTTO. His PINK walls, figures as tall as houses, in childlike perspectives.
Plastic beauty overwhelmed me, not only in museums (I had my “Friends of the Louvre” card from a young age), but also in churches and cathedrals where stained glass and statuary were striking. Religious subjects, often quite tedious, I must say, could suddenly light up magically and move me deeply: faces of Madonnas, Botticelli, Bellini (I copied one of his pieces, with the help of Sophia Loren), soaring angels, white clouds, blue skies, and also so many nude bodies, which were unsettling. Fouquet's Virgin, with her perfectly rounded breasts, the result of cosmetic surgery, WHITE, insolent, and all the elongated torsos of Jesus and Saint Sebastian… It's amusing how quickly the SACRED can slip into the whirlwind of the Senses. Was it intentional or a glitch?
Then in Toledo, EL GRECO's Saint John, his GREEN tunic, an insane color, disproportionately long hands, with a PINK that surely influenced Francis Bacon.
In Rome, I glimpsed a CARAVAGGIO at the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi, just for a fleeting moment, for a dime, where Saint Matthew bears a hyper-realistic resemblance to John McEnroe, complete with a headband. Astounding…
COLOR EVOKES EMOTIONS
Then came FRAGONARD's YELLOW, a pure chemistry of silk. Here is an absolute genius, an inventor - before NICÉPHORE NIÉPCE - of the instantaneous image, with his shoe caught in mid-air while the shepherd peers under the girls' skirts, like in Alain Souchon's song.
Long before FELIX VALLOTTON's RED balloon (but there, photography had already been invented!)...
Another genius is TURNER who, with his molten YELLOW suns, invented abstract painting, surpassing the Hollywood-esque JOHN MARTIN, his apocalyptic visions, and his gigantic canvases in which one loses oneself.
I would only discover MICHAEL SWEERTS in Madrid years later with his Boy with a GOLD Turban, which inspires me here.
NICOLAS DE STAËL: One day, I was gazing, fascinated, at one of his sublime paintings in a shop window on Avenue Matignon. Michel Audiard appeared reflected behind me. (We had arranged to meet for lunch.)
"Do you like it?" he asked me. Before I could even answer, he added, "I dreamed of buying one when they were still affordable. But I waited too long. It's one of my regrets."
In New York, I spent two hours, mesmerized, in front of a ROTHKO, RED and BLUE.
Color captivated me again in Mexico City: there were two staircases leading from the same point. I couldn't decide which one to climb first, I was so impatient! One led to a BACON, MAUVE. The other to a TAMAYO (an ORANGE Virgin), a masterpiece. That's when I discovered Rufino Tamayo, an architect like Michelangelo, and he also had a sense of humor.
I've always wanted to paint. I made a drawing for my mother (already a collage) for her birthday in 1973 with colored pencils. It was too early for me, but I was also short of money.
ERRÓ definitively sparked my vocation during a retrospective at the FOLON Foundation in La Hulpe. Not so much for its comic book colors as for its pop compositions and collages. It irresistibly inspires me. I rush home with enthusiasm and head out to buy blank canvases. I love doing new things. Taking risks. Surprising the public. It gives me stage fright and a new kind of excitement.
I chose JIM JAZZ as an artist name. I love pseudonyms. I've had so many parallel lives. They deserve names in my eyes. It's a way to keep track of things. It makes me feel younger. It's a way to relive my twenties.
- Jean-Marie Poiré aka JIM JAZZ
