Jérôme Zonder: "Ras bord"

Galerie Nathalie Obadia is delighted to present "Ras bord", the latest solo show by Jérôme Zonder. The exhibition brings together the most recent portraits of Pierre-François, a fictional character the artist has borrowed Marcel Carné's 1945 film Les Enfants du Paradis.

 

Although portraits are present throughout the work of Jérôme Zonder - Pierre-François, Baptiste and Garance have been leitmotifs in his oeuvre for more than fifteen years - the elements that compose them occupy a defining place. They are the substance that inhabits and embodies them beyond mere figuration; they constitute their very flesh and lend them form through their meticulously crafted intricacies and contrasts.

 

And yet, we should not forget that the artist has chosen to use the most elementary of materials and the most direct of techniques: drawing with graphite and lead pencils and charcoal. His virtuosity allows him to exploit every possibility available to him: realistic representations verging on photorealism, abstract compositions as well as the use of palm rubbings and fingerprints, which can both be distinguished among the variety of marks inscribed on the paper, all revealing Jérôme Zonder's dedication to the act of creation. Life itself seems to take control of the artist's lines. First and foremost, through the bodily contact he maintains with his drawings, but also in the manner he represents his subjects, with their skin as a protective sheath and their hands, so realistically depicted, as sensorial membranes. The subtly nuanced shades of black bring to mind the grey matter of his characters, carbon being one of the major constituents of the human body.

 

To this multiplicity of registers, the artist adds his own unique visual vocabulary. A body of images equivalent to years of collecting are interwoven within these portraits. Concealed behind an unbuttoned shirt or ensconced in his subject's head, fragments of images with diverse themes overlap, seemingly in dialogue with each other. Historical archives, scenes from films and current events coexist for the duration of a drawing, establishing whole new relationships. The viewer's eye creates its own pathway through this juxtaposition of styles and forms, delighting in the chance encounters and innovative narratives.

 

These connections between images might be read like the pages of Aby Warburg's Mnemosyne Atlas¹. The collisions born from this spatial organisation give birth to new strands of knowledge. A number of these visual motifs - such as victory or pain - are echoed from one image to another, whatever their vintage. Immersing oneself in these images can be truly revelatory: The manner in which they are organised leaves open myriads of interpretations of what is happening between the images, in these spaces made up of voids, masses and infinite nuances. In this sense, each study of Pierre-François is an attempt to "produce a language that allow us to embody the issues that surround portraiture in drawing" the artist states.

 

"As words in a sentence join to articulate thought, so too his drawings operate as adaptable elements within his oeuvre"² Catherine Francblin asserts. For over fifteen years Pierre-François' mental landscape has been in a state of constant evolution, accumulating an abundance of images like layers of sediment in his mind. And in "Ras bord" in particular, Jérôme Zonder pushes this logic to the extreme. He uses his technique of "filling in" as the means of representation to create the portraits of Pierre-François. Seated on a chair or in close-up, he unflinchingly faces the viewer. Filled to the brim with images of all kinds and from a vast variety of sources, their swarming constitutes the very substance of the character, saturating both his face and body. Sated, he waits, dreaming.

 

"Ras bord" concentrates in a single moment, in each of the portraits of Pierre-François, exactly what unfolds in the three phases of the layout of the exhibition C'est un Petit Chemin at the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme, on display until 27 October 2024.

 

 

 

-------

¹ Benjamin Bianciotto, ''Divertimento'', Jérôme Zonder - Joyeuse Apocalypse !, Catalogue d'exposition (Luxembourg, Casino Luxembourg - Forum d'art contemporain, 07.10.23 - 07.01.24), p.37.

² Catherine Francblin, ''Jérôme Zonder. Le dessinateur derrière le dessin'', Jérôme Zonder. C'est un petit chemin, Exhibition catalogue, p.591, musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaïsme, 01.06.24 - 27.10.24.