JULIEN MICHEL

He was born in Paris in 1973
Lived and worked in Paris. He died in 2012

Pictures from the news and internet serve as sources for Julien Michel’s pieces. The artist takes his motits from the ever-surrounding print media and internet databases. The images he uses are intended for specific purposes, operating under applicable codes to illustrate messages, announcements, postings, or advertisements. Michel pirates various images such as supermodels, dogs, flowers, retugees, cars, and anything else and transtorms them into paintings.

The sheer abundance of motifs reflect the mass of infinitely available. omnipresent media images. Seemingly arbitrary, the artist’s selection follows no discernible criteria. But transferred in oil on canvas. the seeming v unrelated images are introduced into the sphere of art. Separated from their original context, they lay the media’s strategies bare and their objectives senseless.

SINCE 2002 Julien Michel was only intermittently active as an artist . His production slowed and he himself took little part in public life. In February 2012, the artist passed away at the age of 38 in Fontainebleu, France.