Interview: JF Clapeau
Luca Curci talks with JP Clapeau during Visions, the third appointment of the CANVAS INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR held in Venice, Palazzo Albrizzi- Capello.

Graphic designer and Parisian by day, painter and Norman by night. After studying at the Fine Arts in Caen, I trained with artists in their studios or galleries. I held most of my exhibitions in Normandy, between 1980 and 2019, spanning the Orne, Calvados, and Paris, including group and solo exhibitions.

A Norman artist, visual artist, painter, engraver, and videographer. As an art creator, the rhythm of the blanco invites us to follow a plastic path that becomes narrative, leading us to perceive reality differently, to cross over to the other side of the mirror. Drawings, collages, paintings, scratchings, imprints, but also white correction and video art, like a pulsation of life tuned to our dreams. A sensitive and digital approach where white becomes meaningful. To the rhythm of the Blanco, the sun radiates, and hens mingle with Don Quixote, the dancer with the horse. Everything is allowed.

Luca Curci – How did you get to your current artistic practice?
JF – My studies at the Beaux-Arts, my years spent at the Pasnic gallery, carborundum engraving, and the exhibitions in which I participated, allowed me to experiment with different modes of expression. The material, the colors as well as the line have always been my modes of expression. The imperfections or stains on the ground, the cracks in the bitumen, and the reflections of the shadows on the walls feed my imagination. Drawings, collages, paintings, scrapings, and prints invite us to follow a plastic path that becomes a narrative to lead us to apprehend reality differently, to pass to the other side of the mirror, like a life impulse granted to our dreams.

LC – What are your thoughts while you paint, Do you have any habits or rituals while you work?
JF – My thoughts are often occupied by something other than the painting in progress. They are lost in everyday life, in the people I meet. They turn into a story a bit like a dream. Without forgetting the subject, I let myself be carried away by them. I don’t have any habits or rituals, except that I work with background music (music or TV hubbub) and very often at night. It helps me to escape, to tell these stories, to be in another space.

LC – How is your creative process?
JF – He leaves for walks where I observe the environment, and take pictures. Through sketches, I try to transcribe what I have perceived: a trace on the ground turns into a character, a task in the flight of Gingko petals… This work helped me to learn the form, and the colors so as not to have any more model in front of me and only work with my memory of them. Memory is what allows me to escape through reverie.

LC – Are your artworks focused on a specific theme?
JF – Yes and no, as I said, I let myself be carried away by my encounters, my intuitions and my thoughts. Characters, animals and nature are part of my palette.

LC – Did your style change over the years? In which way?
JF – Yes, by adding collage and scraping to add more material. The kraft paper arrived, stuck on my canvases to give them, once scraped and brushed a raw, natural look.

LC – What is the message linked to the artwork you have shown in this event?
JF – I have no particular message, I offer you a vision of my universe.

LC – In which way the artwork presented in our exhibition is connected with the exhibition’s theme?JF – A vision of my universe.

LC – What do you think about the organization of our event?
JF – A very good organization that I will have the pleasure of discovering. Unfortunately for me, it will only be at the end of the exhibition.

LC – Do you think ITSLIQUID GROUP can represent an opportunity for artists?
JF – Yes, most certainly through its network and the events created. The meetings you offer.