Such a great anecdote yesterday on our IG Live interview with Paris-based artist, Jean Jullien! Last year, at his opening in San Francisco with Chandran Gallery, a woman came up to Jean and confided with him about a fondly familiar feeling in one of his shore scenes, as she actually recognized her own family’s time on that exact beach. Jean loved hearing that because he makes work as a conduit of connection through shared memory.
What I like about the story is how it spoke to a universality that Jullien has always pursued in both the paintings and illustrations for which he first became famous. His illustrative work, like an observation culled from Curb Your Enthusiasm spliced with comic book wit, can be translated across any language. And his fine artwork, with rural and beach scenes that document Jean’s travels with his family, speak to a warmer universality of intimate, domestic and relationship-based memories.
This is all the more interesting because Jean Jullien’s newest show, Home Slice, built as an online experiential story that Jean conceived while sheltering at his parent’s home in the Brittany region of France with his wife and children, is both the most personal work to date, and perhaps, most relatable to a wide audience, as well. Hosted by Chandran Gallery, the title of the show is based on the early 20th century French playwright, also named Jean Jullien, and his term “slice of life,” which our contemporary Jean says speaks to his process of craving out daily observations, interior scenes, and family moments. What is nice about the overall story of Home Slice is that you can relate to the daily motions within the work. We take walks, convene for lunch, maybe perform solo exercises, scsn our phones, read, invent chores, play and sometimes just sit and talk—or do nothing at all. These mundane moments become profound with Jullien, who kneads together both his words and paintings together for a satisfying universal experience.
On April 30th, Jean and Chandran Gallery were supposed to open a solo show in NYC, but the obvious alteration in our abilities to gather changed the course of the show. But in the pause, this show feels more conceived with all of us in mind, even though we are getting a window into the life of an artist who continues to be one of our best narrators of shared experiences. —Evan Pricco
