While Jean-Luc Moerman’s work takes as its starting point a daily and systematic practice of drawing in his studio, this practice then unfolds through implosion and cross-pollination.
The motif, like a living organism, spreads out to take over and explore a variety of surfaces (canvases, walls, stickers, magazine images). At the La Criée art center, Jean-Luc Moerman created an in situ mural that unfolds throughout the entire space, runs along the walls, drips onto the floor, and climbs back up along the floor-to-ceiling window. Starting from this “backdrop” (a term borrowed here from graffiti), he recontextualizes—by layering them—various works and variations of his practice in drawing and painting (paintings on canvas or aluminum panels, mirror cutouts, etc.). The canvases seem to explore the infinitely small nature of these hybrids with their vibrant, fluorescent colors, while the mirrors create a reflection toward the opposite space. The dialogue is ongoing; architecture acts as a mold into which the painting fits, which in turn reshapes the space, stretches it, flattens its angles, and accentuates its distortions and perspectives. Facing the art center, Jean-Luc Moerman has transformed the central streetlight on Place Honoré Commeurec into a totem—a colorful, luminous installation and a true gathering spot where anyone can come and apply stickers. The artist’s residency in Rennes also included a collaboration with the Maison de Quartier de Maurepas to create a mural with local teenagers in the shopping area.
Refusing to be confined to any aesthetic category, historical label, or predetermined field of practice, Jean-Luc Moerman emphasizes the artist’s social function as a conduit, a translator of a vision, and an interlocutor. This role leads him to connect and foster communication rather than to fragment or subtract. His work does not stop at the exhibition space; he constantly maintains a dialogue between the interior and the exterior, between the art space and the urban space. On a formal level, the motifs unfold like a language composed of signs and logos—a kind of systematic yet spontaneous writing that drives him to constantly push the boundaries of painting. His references are diverse and do not always come from the visual arts. He draws equally from the worlds of American comics and manga, urban culture—including graffiti and hip-hop—and the ancient traditions of tattooing. He expresses this fusion through a metaphorical universe of life: forms that emerge, develop, and proliferate, only to disappear.
Alexandra Gillet
Production : La Criée centre d'art contemporain, Rennes
