Jean Jullien

"My job is to communicate positive things, to make people smile, to make them think sometimes too I hope." No one else explains his artistic approach better than Jean Jullien. In a career spanning only ten years and since obtaining his master's degree at the Royal College of Arts in London, the Breton artist has produced more than 2000 creations: sketchbooks, commercial illustrations, posters, satirical drawings, sculptures, clothing, photos of everyday objects, paintings on canvas, cartoons, and object designs, collected here in a 246-page monograph with more than 300 illustrations published by Phaïdon.

From acrylic gouache on large canvas to his Instagram feed, the artist moves from one medium to another with the same naive and always sensitive aesthetic. The simplicity of his line contrasts with the irony of his satirical images of society, with humour he anthropomorphises objects, giving a smile to a simple light bulb. Critical or playful, the vision is always sober and fair and the approach "home-made". Jean Jullien defines himself as an "assumed opportunist" reflecting his time, quick to change hats and environments according to the expectations and desires of the viewer.

Introduced by Raphaël Cruyt, curator, gallery director and co-founder of MIMA, a museum of contemporary art in Brussels, this monograph opens with elegant facsimiles of his sketchbooks. An intimate entry that reveals a daily creativity, developed in three chapters with titles handwritten by the artist and punctuated by personal discussions (with his parents Sylvie and Bruno, his brother Nico, his collaborators, etc.): "Personal", "Collaborations", "Public", followed by an afterword by Sarah Andelman, founder of the mythical Parisian concept-store Colette and discoverer of talents, including Jean Jullien.