Bio
J. is a visual artist, painter, activist and musician. Committed to the question of community, places and space, J’s work questions our capacity for inhabiting differently.
Their first art project in South Africa (’Stationary’, 2011) portrayed travelers at the station of Cape Town, a place of convergence and multiple identities. Co-founder of the collective Cargo-Sinon since 2013, they got engaged in social innovation programs in France and Europe, which nourished their interest in new forms of collective spaces and organizations (‘Community’ series, 2015-2017).
In 2018, they began imprints of the ground in the streets of various cities (Biarritz, London, Lille) presented in the solo exhibition ‘Welcome Home’ (La Chambre Gallery, Bruxelles 2019), and in the conference and book (ongoing) ‘Where? Thinking in, with and on places’. Since 2020, they extended their practice to natural environments and drawing in mobility (Iceland, Brittany, Ireland). They pursued painting and drawing projects of figurative cityscapes (exhibited in Tournai, 2022), as well as projects on identity, names and definitions (‘Vagrants’, ‘Home’, ‘Scattered’, exhibited in San Francisco, 2024).
J.’s work keeps questioning how places shift our identities and possibilities of living, through a game of permanent dis-identification and dis-appropriation of the signs and traces of places. Taken as a plastic materials, these signs contain a power of reinventing oneself through exile and wandering, in a gathering of sense always yet to come.
J. holds a Master in Visual Arts from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels.
CV
Residencies & Research
2022 Painting Fire House Art Collective, Berkeley, US
2020-21 Permanent Resident at L’alternateur, Center for urban and contemporary arts, Roubaix, FR
2020 In situ imprints in Lille, Cork City, Sherkin Island (IR), Cap Fréhel, Brittany, Paris (FR)
2019 ‘Welcome Home’ in situ imprints in Biarritz, Lille (FR), London (EN)
Awards & Exhibitions
- Solo
2019 “Welcome Home”, solo, La Chambre Galerie, Bruxelles BE
- Awards
2017 Jury selection and exhibition for Prix Hamesse, Bruxelles, BE
2013 Jury Prize and exhibition Scissors Paper Stone, Brussels, BE
- Collective
2024 ‘Women Rising’, Drawing Room, San Francisco, USA
2022 ‘Wandering’ / ‘Vagabondoiement’, Enigme Galerie, Art dans la Ville 2022, Tournai, BE
2021 “Midnight Swim”, homage to the Musée de la Piscine by L’alternateur, Roubaix FR
2021 “Exit 1”, L’alternateur, Roubaix, FR
2015 “Precipitates and bodies”, Chapelle St-Jean, La Garde-Freinet, FR
2014 Sinon-Cargo_, Bruxelles, BE
2014 “Body-Anatomy, research in progress”, Medicine Faculty, Brussels University, BE
Education
2018 Master Visual Arts, Drawing, Royal Academy of Fine Arts - ARBA-ESA, Brussels, BE
2015 Bachelor Visual Arts, Drawing, Royal Academy of Fine Arts - ARBA-ESA, Brussels, BE
2012 Classes with Bruno Mathon, Paris, FR / School of Arts Cergy, FR
2007 Bachelor in English Language & Anglophone Civilisation, Lyon and Strasbourg, FR
2004-2007 Hypokhâhne, Khâgne, Cube: Litterature, English, Philosophy, Lyon and Strasbourg, FR
Writings & Publications
2022 Project “Where? Thinking in, with and on places” (“¿Dónde? Pensar en, con y sobre los lugares”), collective - ongoing
2018 Collective text ‘Broken Dictionary of Cargo’ (“Dictionnaire saboté de Cargo”), FR
2017 Art text ‘Fractured Dictionary of the Odyssey’ (’Dictionnaire fracturé de l’Odyssée’), artistic comment on Workshop Odyssée des Libertés in Brussels, BE
Collaborations
2021 Talk: “Imprints: between absence and inscription”, in cycle: “Where? Thinking in, with and on places” by philosopher E. Helmer
2017-Present Solo and collective retreats in Performing Arts Forum, St-Ermes, FR
2013-Present co-founder of Cargo-Sinon artist collective hellocargo.org
2012-16 Art workshops facilitaion for the Cultural Center Omar Khayam, Bruxelles, BE
2013 MH GALERIE, volunteer assistant, Claude Panier, « History X », Bruxelles, BE