Jean-Luc Almond

Jean-Luc’s highly textured oil paintings have a tangible, sculptural quality. Embracing the transformations that occur when not enslaved to the subject matter, he becomes obsessed with the materiality and texture of the paint itself. A tension forms within the thick surfaces as paint takes precedence over representation, and a deeper psychological and emotional presence is unearthed. He meticulously constructs a portrait using multiple layers of oil before masking, erasing, and blurring features through bold impasto marks, scratching, and peeling. Traces of its history are exposed – an apparition or fading memory of what’s beneath. Jean-Luc’s Dark Head paintings play with light and darkness. Ambiguous subjects emerge from – or disappear into – the shadows, hints of concealed features are illuminated, and the viewer is enticed to search deeper.

Among Jean-Luc’s influences is Victorian photography. His paintings are constructed through the processes of creation and destruction, damage and repair. Jean-Luc is obsessed with the materiality and texture of the paint itself. He embraces the transformations that take place when he is no longer a slave to the image and the painting becomes more about the paint and the surface. Inspired by the poetic beauty of darkness he tries to discover through his portrait what is on the inside, the essence of the portrait. A certain tension exists within the thick surfaces of his paintings, as paint takes precedence over representation. This creates a fantastic piece, embracing elements of Pop-art letting the inside escape the single dimension with heavy layered paint.