Jaybo
28-Oct-2009
Born in France, Jaybo has lived and worked in Berlin for over 20 years and has been a very influential figure on the urban scene in that city, both as an artist and as the founder of the important magazine 'Style'.
In his time Jaybo has also been an actor and musician (maybe the first French rapper), but in recent years has concentrated on his artwork with considerable success in Germany and increasingly an international audience is taking note.
"One of the main things about my work is the fight against
prejudices and pre madi ideas. About first looks and wrong
consequences, about giving a second chance and about trying to be open
to the unknown. In this show, I would like to present the power of the
first eye contact. Working on the medium Portrait...the first approach
is often something which you realise much later, after a while. I try
to get the same energy. With my techniques of fast spray moves and
impulses layers I try to recreate the same kind of Accidental meetings,
I am not doing portraits of people I know, but I try to recreate the
feelings that I had by meeting someone somewhere sometimes. That´s
maybe why all those faces are quiet repetitive, I concentrate on the
soul and on the spontaneous feelings they left on me. Those faces are
made to make you laugh, to make you cry, to be feared of, to be loved.
After doing some of those works in the street I realised that everybody
got another approach about the very same portraits . A grimacing face
can bring you to laugh but also manage to show you pain ..which means
everybody has an own perspective of others based on a simple visual
codex. I try to play with those visual vocabulary. I use distortions as
symbol for the movement from the inside to the outside of a body. I use
sharp and unsharp as a symbol of distance between you and the raw
feeling. I use the white untouched background of a canvas to show the
spontaneity of an accidental meeting. some will be disturbed from the
portraits, some will be moved ,but this has just something to do with
their own situations.
This is how I try
to make the people open their mind to the unknown and not going
backwards in the future and giving a chance to anyone by recognising
new and different soul distortions and new visual codex"
