“If the inspiration comes from cinema, Jérôme François approach is in return totally devoted to painting. Everything is dedicated to
it, everything brings us back to his fundamental questioning and every iconographic
excursion in his work leads back to it. Be it a question of screen, focal or
mise en abîme, of narration, freeze-frame or abstract composition, we find
ourselves face to face with a piece of research which aims to proclaim the perpetuity
of a mode. Be it that he borrows his motifs from the seventh art, makes use of
the projection mode to reproduce them, frames them as seen from the projectionist’s
box, Jérôme François has one aim only : to render painting
onto painting (...) The influences here are diverse. In matters of recovery,
Jérome François art owes as much to the ready-made style of Marcel
Duchamp as it does to the example of Nouveau Réalisme ; as for the way
he manipulates the images, he owes as much to Pop Art’s fragmentation technique
as he does to the syncopated technique of an artist like David Salle ; where
style is concerned, he owes to the experience of a work such as that of Richter."
Philippe Piguet Jérôme François, destination peinture, Arthotèque de Caen
