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Jean-Luc Maniouloux
Jean-Luc Maniouloux, a visual artist, creates delicate compositions composed of preserved insects where the living meets the object, often with brilliance. Immortalized under plexiglass cases, these lyrical scenes depict fabulous micro-universes, where nature would reclaim its rights.

Oeuvres

Works

Obras

Château Margaux

Impact

Smoking kills

Impact

Impact

Prairie

Impact

Impact

Impact

Allumette

Impact

Sonia

Sonia

Keith

Piet III

Armand de Brignac (sold)

Sonia

Piet IV

Impact

Impact

Sonia 1

Impact

Impact

Sonia and Robert

Impact

Biographie

Biography

Biografía

This self-taught visual artist creates transparent compositions, incorporating preserved insects and everyday objects.

 

Born in 1959, Jean-Luc Maniouloux grew up in the South of France. As an adult, he decided to pursue studies in advertising and moved to Paris, a city he never left, where he graduated from ENSAM (Ecole Supérieure d’Arts Modernes de Paris).

 

Working in the field of medical illustration for many years, Jean-Luc Maniouloux regularly visited the operating rooms of Parisian hospitals. Later, he turned to publishing, where the illustrator revealed a preference for representing nature and animals. For the past decade, he has been fully and exclusively dedicated to his artistic practice.

 

His series “Impacts” originated from an initial experimental venture where the artist created a small composition depicting a hornet colliding with a tile, causing a crack. It has now evolved into multiple scenes, as poetic as they are surreal.

 

These works are made of glass plates carefully embedded in a plexiglass case, a unique technique that creates the illusion of freezing movement, akin to a three-dimensional photographic snapshot. However, the artist’s virtuosity lies in his ability to awaken the viewer’s senses, turning this frozen image into an almost animated piece: when the stimulated imagination extends the action in thought, all it takes is to listen carefully to perceive the sound produced by this collision.

Choosing to make the insect the central character of his compositions, despite being often unloved, the artist opts for a bold stance that was nevertheless evident to him. It was while exploring cabinets of curiosities in his youth that Jean-Luc Maniouloux discovered entomology, a discipline that fascinated him and about which he spoke in these words:

 

“Entomology is not just about pinning insects in boxes; it is about becoming aware of the incredible richness of a world often hidden and under threat in recent times.” – Jean Luc Maniouloux

 

 

Thus, the series portrays insects that, when confronted with human creations such as light bulbs, neon lights, concrete walls, tiles, and more, traverse, break, and crack through them. Indeed, bumblebees, ants, and other royalty of the microcosmos seem indifferent to the obstacles imposed by our manufactured world. Ignoring all constraints, they bravely carve paths through each of its facets.

 

This encounter, with a surreal and even entirely absurd outcome, may initially bring a smile to our faces but also carries a crucial message. As a committed environmentalist, Jean-Luc Maniouloux warns us about the climate urgency that has relentlessly accelerated the extinction of insect species. Faced with a sanitized, concrete-covered, tiled urbanism, nature endangered finally asserts itself! In this context, where the impact might be perceived as destructive, it becomes a movement of liberating, poetic, and committed revolt.

In one of his recent series titled “Migration,” he drives this point home by depicting families of ants and dung beetles forced to exile from scorched, uninhabitable land.

 

By transposing these tiny, frail creatures to the human condition, they evoke our sympathy. Trapped, they hint at the reflection of the tragic future that awaits us. Yet, these works also prompt us to reevaluate this teeming fauna. If humans and animals were to disappear, insects would likely have the capacity to survive. (Especially these butterflies: a species that emerged 150 million years ago and survived the era of dinosaurs.)

Médias et vidéos

Medias and videos

Medios y videos

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