Atelier Jean-Pierre Sergent 11 Avenue de La Gare d'Eau, 25000 Besançon (France)
Tel 01133 (0)3 81 53 28 87 - Cel 01133 (0)6 73 44 94 86

Biography (english PDF)
Biographie (PDF français)

Chronological Artist Biography

1958 Born in Morteau, France. French, Swiss, American.

1978-1981 Studies architecture in Strasbourg and later painting at L'école des Beaux-Arts de Besançon.

1983-1991 Works as visual artist while raising and training horses in the Jura Mountains. Completes monochrome abstractions on Masonite polyptych panels.

1991 Moves to Montreal to devote himself fully to painting. Creates works using Plexiglas, industrial materials, newspaper clippings and photos. Begins incorporating silkscreening techniques.

1993 Sets up studio in New York City. Paints street-found object "sculpture-paintings" series, creates silkscreens on Plexiglas tile assemblages.

1998 Exhibits a monumental site-specific mural plexiglas painting at the French Institute of New York.

2001-2003 Paints the "Mayan Diary" series, a modular mural installation of 42" x 42" silkscreened Plexiglas squares inspired by pre-Columbian Aztec and Mayan imagery. This body of work is still in progress and is exhibited at several New York galleries and cultural centers. Sergent uses computer technology to redesign gathered images and cut silkscreen film.

2004-Present Moves his studio to Besançon, France and divides his time between New York City and Besançon.

2007 Install "Mayan Diary" 2003, (18 paintings silkscreened on plexiglas, 10'4" X 20'8") for the set design of Traviata Giuseppe Verdi's Opera in the minimalist scenery by Didier Brunel.

2008 Installs "Mayan Diary 24" (10'4" x 27"6" ) in the "Salle des Iles Basses" city of Ornans, France. Documentary film "Insolation et autres puissances symboliques" realized by Jean-luc Gantner.

Sergent’s work is exhibited in France, England, Austria, Switzerland as well as in Canada and the United States.

Sergent engages himself in Themes of eroticism, shamanism, the cosmology of the afterlife and chaos. The artist uses life's forces to wreck individual and collective mind/body and social/cultural forms of alienation. His works dig deeply into the collective super-conscious and various pre-industrial mythologies in order to honor the Man/Nature/Culture/Universe interconnection. He also depicts "wholeness areas" human-beings can reach through spirituality or sexual intimacy.

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