Introducing Jean Louis d'Angelo

Jean Louis is a multidimensional artist…A plastic artist, alternating between painting, sculpting, and creating art installations; he is also a videographer. His style is not easy to classify for his sources of inspiration are so diverse yet entirely related. 

He works to merge different materials as well as varying medias. His favorite topic: the social, urban environment around him, whose plurality composes and nourishes Jean Louis. His artworks are the outcome of a critical view, of the spectator’s consciousness, but also a positive, even amused look, hinting a smile from a distance. 

Since the Beaux-Arts in Versailles, he has been strongly influenced by graphic art, combining plastic arts and multimedia, whose popularity took off in the 80s. The first part of his career was in television, working as chief operator or cameraman, until painting, always just beneath the surface, took center stage in his life. In the early 90s, after having directed his first fictional work, a cross-breeding occurred between his plastic creations and his cinematic knowledge. 

This path towards plastic art, based entirely on experimentation, goes hand in hand with his distancing from the television community, all the while progressively immerging himself in the fallow areas of culture. In the heart of art squats, the energy and the dynamics within this new community life, become the catalyst for his artworks, absorbing the materials surrounding him and attaining the desired creative “trance”. 

Music naturally soon followed, whose influence is omnipresent in his paintings, and giving rise to sound and video installations, such as VJing and remixing, with a minimal yet nonetheless effective style. Combining all aspects of picture and sound, Jean Louis D’Angelo’s artwork is constantly refined, fueled by his environmental experience: the physical aspect of the squats and the human aspect, by means of the creative and intellectual effervescence, found in such community hubs. 

The result is a blend, an overlapping, a creative explosion even; his artworks form an ever-changing urban kaleidoscope, in which mankind remains key. His “Jeu de l’Ego”  series of drawings, paintings and sculptures  is a perfect example of this, where the graphic simplicity is misleading because its message goes beyond its aesthetics. Jean Louis D’Angelo’s artworks can be appreciated altogether with their graphic aestheticism, but can also be interpreted to the second or third degree, given you find the right keys. But only if you choose to, for, just as the artist is humble, so are his paintings and their meaning; you are free to simply enjoy the aesthetic and graphic aspects of his paintings, or to look deeper and beyond.