Kej

French Contemporary Art by KEJ - Un Petit Monde Déroutant

2019

KEJ is a French artist born in 1959 who lives & works in Paris, France. He is considered to belong to the movement of Figuration Libre & Outsider Art. His works are referenced in the...

KEJ is a French artist born in 1959 who lives & works in Paris, France. He is considered to belong to the movement of Figuration Libre & Outsider Art. His works are referenced in the...

Parris Jaru's The Last Time I Saw It is a 16 x 11-inch surrealist oil painting. The primary colors are black and red. The canvas surface has a thick impasto of paint, made with plant-based pigments that Jaru collects during his long exploratory trips through India. The imagery brings a surrealist human figure, with all the body features exaggerated as if in a caricature. NY-born Parris Jaru comes from a Jamaican, Blackfoot Nation, and Arawak Nation background from both his parents. His work is informed by the vivid colors and imagery experienced in his childhood years spent in the coastal town of St. Ann’s Bay, Jamaica. His exploratory journeys in India enriched his work with a sensibility to natural plant-based pigments that he grinds with oils for his paintings. In his Brooklyn studio, Jaru brings all these cultural inspirations together. His entire body of work is informed by an intentional childlike, faux-naïve style, constantly shifting between figurative and abstraction. Even though at times, Jaru has been working on somber and entirely figure-free paintings, most of his work is defined by poignantly colored and playful surrealistic figures. Jaru often draws his figures with a continuous line emerging from a thick impasto of paint made with powders of Sea Algae, Hibiscus, Gymnema Sylvestre, and Turmeric. Related keywords: Caribbean Artist...

Acrylic paint on canvas Hand-signed lower right by the artist Part of the current exhibition "On the way to the origins", Philippe Jacq's solo show at Claire Corcia Gallery, Paris