Jerome Rapin: Possible Cause of Life

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Jérôme Rapin, "Femme assise sur un banc," 2019

drawing. Z Gallery Arts

Reception:

Thursday, September 12th, 6 pm - 8 pm

Jérôme Rapin's preferred medium is the drawing. He draws with a quick line and captures the body of his models at the moment. The body is the real subject of this series, not the face, but the feminine flesh recognizable by a posture, an attribute, a frozen movement, a whole that characterizes the body in its entirety. The colour appears in this series by the use of painting, a painting with very Baconian inspirations and where we clearly feel the influence of Lucian Freud which the artist admires. It could determine a carnation similar to the way that it’s treated by the Bulgarian artist Oda Jaune. Both, Jérôme Rapin and Oda Jaune need to show what is hidden under the surface of appearances. Then the pink shades mingle with the gray and pull towards the green to embrace an unconventional body. No stereotype, no smooth and sublimated aesthetics but assembled fragments of coloured skins that translate an ambiguity: how can the body be so resistant and so fragile at the same time? Sometimes skin hides the worst pain. Here, it is the disease that transpires, the one that Jerome Rapin was able to observe closely because he sees his mother in the fight against cancer since a very young age. It is especially from her that he has learned the danger of medication, and from her that he has understood the pangs of allopathic medicine that heals somewhere to destroy elsewhere. Then the pieces of the painted skins, those of the "woman in the gray room" intertwine together in a common murmur, that of an ever alive body that reads each being to its materiality and finiteness.

- Sandra Barre

Jerome Rapin was born in Roanne, France in 1975. He continues, in parallel, the organization of life drawing sessions, and the first drawings and watercolors for the series ‘body extracts’ - referring to his mother’s fight – are born.

From 2007, in London and Cardiff, Jérôme exhibited in a professional setting through different galleries (Kooywood Gallery, Coleman, Degree Art Gallery …) and his work in drawings are shown in contemporary art fairs (London, Bristol).

During his London years, he continued drawing and painting and befriended the many artists who crossed his path. In 2011, he went to Saint Barths (French West Indies) to honor a position of interior designer. He finally settled on his own in 2015 to find time for painting, drawing and photography, three activities in which he now dedicates all his time. Several exhibitions of his latest works have taken place then. After leaving the island in September 2017, he settles in France near La Rochelle where he has set up his art studio, dedicating now 100% of his time to art, drawing and painting.

Jérôme was awarded the distinction of ‘painter of the year 2017’ by the French Art Magazine ‘Pratique des Arts’ with ‘Robb’ from the series ‘BEAUTEE CACHEE’, a gigantic oil on canvas portrait. He has also shown his work during the prestigious ‘Salon des Artistes Indépendants’ in Le Grand Palais in Paris early 2019.