Jean-Charles BLAIS

February 1, 2019

Jean-Charles Blais was born in 1956 in Nantes, France. After his studies, his career began in the early 1980s. Art movements such as Nouveaux Realism, Pop-art and Arte Povera were a major influence for him. As well as the “Affiches ArrachĂ©es” technique of Mario Merz and Jacques VilleglĂ©. He tore pieces of posters along the streets and stuck them back together like a new carrier on which he made his painting. An innovative technique with which he quickly received international attention. Already during the 1980s he exhibited not only in Europe, but also in the United States and Japan. He often paints people or parts of bodies, but displays them as (monumental) objects. In other words, he takes away the human aspect of his subject. For example, he will almost never portray a face, since they always contain a certain expression of human origin. Blais belonged to the French artists group “Figuration Libre”, which in turn are part of the (French) Neo-Popart. He is also mentioned in the book “Pop Art: A Continuing History” by Marco Livingstone under the period of the 1980s.