Jean-Paul Rouaud studied at the École des Arts Appliqués in Paris from 1961 to 1965, where he practiced all the techniques of drawing, painting, and sculpture.

He completed this training at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, in Bertholle’s fresco workshop, from 1966 to 1969. Alongside his training as a visual artist, he developed an interest in musical instrument making and lutherie, and established himself in Paris as a harpsichord maker in 1970, an activity he has pursued throughout his life to this day with continued success.

His painting, a practice he has always pursued with passion, reflects a love for reality, for the human figure, and for nature.

Indeed, the subject remains what we see, as it has since the dawn of time, but it remains essential for generating a powerful emotion to which the artist gives new forms. “The main problem for an artist is to manage to create something that you see with your instinct,” Francis Bacon said in an interview. He added:

“Abstraction is an easy way out, a simplification of the tension that exists between matter and subject.” For J.P. Rouaud, painting remains the only way to translate his own emotion in the face of life, and he does so with a distinctive style—rhythmic, light or nervous, allusive or emphatic.

He prefers to work with acrylics on paper, allowing the paper to show through, to play its part.

The works exhibited today, very recent, bear witness to a return to true painting, something closer to instinct, capable of awakening emotion in the viewer.