- Thierry Eme: Among the locals, we've got a visual artist from Bisontin who has exhibited in Europe, the United States, China and Iran, and who's currently showing his work in Besançon. You shouldn't miss him, because he's also exhibiting in a new gallery, the Glerie Keller. Hello Jean-Pierre Sergent!
- Jean-Pierre Sergent: Hello Thierry, and hello to all our listeners. It's a real pleasure to be with you.
- T.E.: What's this gallery? Is it a branch of a Zurich gallery?
- J-P.S.: No, not at all. My friend Heidi Suter couldn't find space in Zurich, because rents were getting too expensive. And so she decided to move here, to Besançon, to open this new exhibition space, because we've known each other for over ten years already, yes, we've been working together for ten years. We did the Lugano fairs together (Wopart), we're partners and for our first show, we decided to open with this exhibition “Erotica, works on paper” in this space and the exhibition will last three months, the time it takes to wipe the slate clean, if you like, so that people get to know and discover the gallery.
- T.E.: Jean-Pierre, you're better known internationally than you are here locally. Is Jean-Pierre Sergent a household name in the art world today? (read the full article)

[read the English translated text]
They've been working together for 10 years: he, a painter from Besançon, and Heidi Suter, a gallery owner from Zurich. Together they opened the Keller Gallery at 7, rue Proudhon. Until March, Jean-Pierre Sergent presents “Erotica, works on paper”.
Jean-Pierre Sergent exhibits at Galerie Keller, run by Zurich-based Heidi Suter.

Of the 566 works on paper in his "Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes" series, Jean-Pierre Sergent has chosen to exhibit a selection of eight works on paper, created between summer and autumn. The painter pursues his path, off the beaten track, nourished by primitive cultures.

Documentary film presenting the artist silk-screening his new art prints series: Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes. Filmed by the artist on August 8th 2024.
 

Documentary film presenting the artist silk-screening his new art prints series: Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes. Filmed by the artist on August 7th 2024.

Documentary film presenting the artist silk-screening his new art prints series: Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes. Filmed by the artist on August 1 2024.

Documentary film presenting the artist silk-screening his new art prints series: Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes. Filmed by the artist and Lionel Georges on July 30 2024.

Documentary film presenting the artist silk-screening his new art prints series: Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes (Complete working session). Filmed by the artist on July 28 2024.

Documentary film presenting Jean-Pierre Sergent silk-screening his new art prints series: Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes (Complete working session). Filmed by the artist on July 28 2024.

Documentary film presenting the artist Jean-Pierre Sergent exposing the silk-screen frames of his new series: Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes. Filmed by the artist and Lionel Georges on July 18th, 2024.

Documentary film presenting the artist Jean-Pierre Sergent exposing the silk-screen frames of his new series: Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes. Filmed by the artist and Lionel Georges on July 18th, 2024.

Documentary film presenting the artist Jean-Pierre Sergent drawing with Indian ink on positive films, the images of his new series: Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes. Filmed by the artist on June 30, 2024.

Documentary film presenting the artist Jean-Pierre Sergent drawing with Indian ink on positive films, the images of his new series: Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes. Filmed by the artist on June 30, 2022.

Documentary film presenting the artist Jean-Pierre Sergent drawing with Indian ink on positive films, the images of his new series: Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes. Filmed by the artist on June 28, 2024.

On view for the first time at the new Keller Gallery in Besançon, a selection of eight new works on paper (selected from a range of 566 prints), from his brand-new series Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes, created during the summer and autumn of 2024. These are one-of-a-kind works, acrylic hand silkscreened with Indian ink highlights on 120g white Gmund Hanf paper, size 100 x 70 cm, as well as on 250g white Rives BFK paper, size 76 x 56 cm. A selection of some twenty small formats from his series Shakti-Yoni: Ecstatic Cosmic Dances (2016 - 2020), 25 x 25 cm, will also be on display, with also a large painting on Plexiglas from the Mayan Diary 2010 series, 1.40 x 1.40 m : Metacosmic Void and the Bindu Point in the Ocean of Pure Consciousness (in reference to a Hindu yantra).

Documentary film presenting the artist Jean-Pierre Sergent drawing with Indian ink on positive films, the images of his new series: Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes. Filmed by the artist on June 28, 2024.

Documentary film presenting the artist Jean-Pierre Sergent drawing with Indian ink on positive films, the images of his new series: Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes. Filmed by the artist on June 28, 2024.

Documentary film presenting the artist Jean-Pierre Sergent drawing with Indian ink on positive films, the images of his new series: Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes. Filmed by the artist on June 28, 2024.

Gallery owner Heidi Suter, who has run two successive galleries in Zurich for almost forty years, is now opening a new exhibition space in the heart of Besançon. For this first show, she will be presenting the work of French-New York artist Jean-Pierre Sergent...
On show for the first time: a selection of eight new works on paper (selected from a range of 566 prints), from his brand-new series Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes, created during the summer and autumn of 2024. These are one-of-a-kind works, acrylic hand silkscreened with Indian ink highlights on 120g white Gmund Hanf paper, size 100 x 70 cm, as well as on 250g white Rives BFK paper, size 76 x 56 cm. A selection of some twenty small formats from his series Shakti-Yoni: Ecstatic Cosmic Dances (2016 - 2020), 25 x 25 cm, will also be on display, with also a large painting on Plexiglas from the Mayan Diary 2010 series, 1.40 x 1.40 m : Metacosmic Void and the Bindu Point in the Ocean of Pure Consciousness (in reference to a Hindu yantra).

x 133 photos of the new art prints from the series Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes, acrylic hand silk-screened and Indian ink on yellow Wang sketching paper (80g), unique print, format 80 x 60 cm, 2024.

x 266 photos of the new art prints from the series Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes, acrylic hand silk-screened and Indian ink on Rives BFK white (250g) & cream (160g) papers, unique print, format 76 x 56 cm, 2024.

x 167 photos of the new art prints from the series Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes, acrylic hand silk-screened and Indian ink on white Gmund Hanf hemp paper (120g), unframed format 100 x 70 cm.

ARCHAIC DIMENSIONS, ORGANIC THOUGHTS, THE WRAP-WRAPPING, GRAFFITI & PATTERNS

"Dawn breaks
and flowers open
the gates of paradise."

Saimu, "Japanese Farewell Poems (Poems written on the threshold of death)", Yoel Hoffmann

"The path of excess leads to the palaces of wisdom." William Blake


My work can be seen as an immense graffiti, as an unforgettable and infinite palimpsest, an immense fresco, unfolding endlessly, from beginning to end, in which the successions of images summoned and silkscreened exist, with their own particular colors, like so many musical notes and successive, vibrating orgiastic scenes, like the enchanted endless waves of the Ocean. It's a whole in itself, a community, a parade of information, as in Nature itself...

A series of portrait-photos taken by photographer Lionel Franck Georges, showing the artist working, in his Besançon studio's, on the various stages of the screen-printing process: drawing and peeling out the inactinic films, exposing the screens in the light table and printing the images on different kind of papers... for completing his new series: "Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes #2".

Series of one-of-a-kind prints, hand-silk-screened acrylic paint enhanced with Indian ink on yellow Wang Sketching paper (80g), format 80 x 60 cm, on white paper (250g) & Rives BFK cream (160g), format 76 x 56 cm and on a new Gmund Hanf paper, white, hemp (120g), format 100 x 70 cm.

My dear friend Johnes Ruta (curator and art critic) decided to read the text TRANSVERSALITY by my dear friend Marie-Madeleine Varet (philosopher), which he had liked very much, and so here is this beautiful impromptu video:

- An excerpt from the philosopher Marie-Madeleine Varet, French. On the work of the artist Jean-Pierre Sergent : TRANSVERSALITY. It is part of the traversée of contemporary art, a journey, a path: "... there is no end, only the path. But I'd like to be, modestly and on my own scale, like the great jazz drummers: jazz drummers are always just a little ahead of the music playing, and that's what makes the soloists pulsate and throws the musicians they accompany totally forward. When you're slightly ahead of the beat, it's because you're doing your job well." Jean-Claude Guillaumon, "L'art, fabrication ou transgression", 2007.


Series of photos showing the different stages of the screen-printing process: drawing and peeling out the inactinic ruby films, exposing the screens in the light table and printing the images on different kind of papers... for completing his new series: "Karma-Kali, Sexual Dreams & Paradoxes #2".

Series of one-of-a-kind prints, hand-silk-screened acrylic paint enhanced with Indian ink on yellow Wang Sketching paper (80g), format 80 x 60 cm, on white paper (250g) & Rives BFK cream (160g), format 76 x 56 cm and on a new Gmund Hanf paper, white, hemp (120g), format 100 x 70 cm.

In particular, I quote and comment on the following important books, with this quotation by Robert Byron from his book, From Russia to Tibet:

CONFESSION OF A TRAVELLER

"As a member of a community and heir to a culture that are today equally controversial, I wanted to discover ideas - if indeed those of the West were outdated - likely to improve the course of the World and, to this end, also to know, via the language of my own sensibility, the beings and things that constitute THE ESSENCE OF THE WORLD.*"

OTHER BOOKS:
- RIPRAP, GARY SNYDER
- KWAÏDAN, STORIES AND STUDIES OF STRANGE THINGS, LAFCADIO HEARN
- THE SUPERHUMAN LIFE OF GUÉSAR DE LING, THE TIBETAN HERO, ALEXANDRA DAVID-NÉEL
- THE DEATH OF BALZAC, OCTAVE MIRBEAU
- THE KING AND THE CORPSE, HEINRICH ZIMMER
- RELATING, IN DEPTH, IN COINCIDENCE TWO SIMILAR SUBJECTS EVOKED IN FILMED INTERVIEWS: NICKY DE ST PHALLE (ARTIST) -1965- & AURÉLIEN BARROU (ASTROPHYSICIAN AND PHILOSOPHER) > "THE TECHNO-PHALIC VERSUS THE VULVO-ENGLOBING", JUNE 2024, etc...

A few 360° photos extracted from the film shoot in partnership with Agence Vauban of Besançon (Mathieu Allard); camera and images by Mathis Jacquerot, filmed on location on May 29 2024. Discover, as if you were there, the three different rooms of the studio where the artist has been working since 2004, after his return from New York. Of particular interest are the large-scale mural installation of paintings on Plexiglas (3.15 x 6.30 m), the silkscreen equipment, the Mexican sculptures and masks and the two bookshelves, which we hope you'll enjoy discovering... Watch the interactive video on Matterport

Documentary film shot in partnership with Agence Vauban of Besançon (Mathieu Allard); camera and images by Mathis Jacquerot, filmed on location on May 29 2024. Discover, as if you were there, the three different rooms of the studio where the artist has been working since 2004, after his return from New York. Of particular interest are the large-scale mural installation of paintings on Plexiglas (3.15 x 6.30 m), the silkscreen equipment, the Mexican sculptures and masks and the two bookshelves, which we hope you'll enjoy discovering... Watch the interactive video on Matterport

A big thank you to my dear friend Marie-Madeleine Varet, who has followed my work with passion and interest since we met in 2013 and who since then has written about my work in progress with great lightning, deep and curious interest with always her very generous and fraternal thoughts as in a through soul mate relationship. Here, are these 12 small critical texts, which are, for me as an artist, some real gifts, real little jewels, and I hope they can serve as a can-opener and could reveal the deep meanings of my art, so that the public can discover my work in a much more joyful, intimate, global and universal way, than they seem to feel and misunderstand it to this day...

- ABOUT THE FILMED INTERVIEW BETWEEN JEAN-PIERRE SERGENT AND JOHNES RUTA, APRIL 21, 2024
- TEXT FOR "THE FOUR PILLARS OF HEAVEN" EXHIBITION CATALOGUE [2020]
- TEXT ON THE SACRED FOR THE "FOUR PILLARS OF HEAVEN" BROCHURE (2020)
- ABOUT THE "SHAKTI-YONI" SERIES (2018)
- PRESENTATION: EXTRACTS FROM A WORK IN PROGRESS
- THE NOTION OF "INFINITY" IN JEAN-PIERRE SERGENT'S ART WORK
- ABSTRACTION / THEORETICAL MODE / SPIRITUAL MODE: THINKING WHAT WE SEE
- ON THE WORK OF JEAN-PIERRE SERGENT / TRANSVERSALITY
- OF WONDER, OF MOVEMENT, OF TRANS-GRESSION AS PASSAGE, SURPASSING LIMITS
- ABOUT JEAN-PIERRE SERGENT: SOME NOTES (2014)
- MARIE-MADELEINE'S QUESTIONS I COULDN'T OR WOULDN'T ANSWER (MAY 2014)
- ABOUT COMPLEX THINKING IN THE NEW IMAGES ON THE FOLLOWING WEB PAGES (2013)

Interactive 3D documentary film shot in partnership with Agence Vauban de Besançon (Mathieu Allard); camera and shots by Mathis Jacquerot. Discover, as if you were there, the three different rooms of the studio where the artist has been working since 2004, after his return from New York. Of particular interest are the large-scale mural installation of paintings on Plexiglas (3.15 x 6.30 m), the silkscreen equipment, the Mexican sculptures and masks and the two bookshelves, which we hope you'll enjoy discovering...