Artist Interview | Jean-Pierre Ceytaire

How did you start creating?

In short, I had no particular aptitude at most, an interest in attending gymnastics and drawing classes rather than anything else!

After a difficult school career and without obtaining my baccalaureate, just before the school gates closed, I earned my physiotherapy degree. I was then assigned to the medical corps and subsequently worked as a paperwork nurse in the psychiatric ward of the Henri Limousin Military Hospital in Freiburg, Germany. In addition to managing medical records, I was responsible for cleaning the painting workshop, which was deserted in the evenings by soldiers hoping for a medical discharge. It was the smells of the ongoing work, the atmosphere, and the incongruity of the place that prompted me to buy my first canvas boards and tubes of paint. Returning to civilian life, I left Paris and set up my first practice in Anduze, while continuing my path as a painter...

What is your favorite medium, and why?

It all started with canvas boards and then pretty much anything I could get my hands on... until I came to prefer fine grain canvas on a frame, and marine plywood, which I coat and cut, but also always papers and cardboards.

Where do you get your inspiration?

mainly from my lived moments, happy or unhappy, imagined or not...present, past...and always in search of human relationships and behaviors, associations of ideas, words, expressions, encounters, surprises...

What is your creative process? From the first idea to the final realization — tell us about it.

For the first idea? Or rather, a jumble of ideas bursting forth in disarray... to pick one... you have to find the right one... the one that sparks the desire... I go around in circles... I escape at the slightest opportunity... I forget and will look at it another day... before doubt sets in, nothing more to say, it's all over, etc., etc., no need to repeat anything, something new, raw, insolent, salacious, or purely chaste, idyllic... follow the thread... whatever, get to work, no choice. The tumult calmed, here we go... imagine it, scribble, sketch, or directly on the canvas, knowing that the first and subsequent strokes won't be right, you have to erase (which is possible with diluted paint in glazes), build, deconstruct, move forward... let it rest and start again... so that, if satisfied, you only have true moments of pleasure in the end...

Does your art have a political or activist dimension? Do you create with the intention of conveying a message?

I don't think, nor am I political or militant, nor do I have a message. My doubts, desires, what I feel, sense, refuse, like, or dislike, a bit like "what state of being," I show it with my painting, without hoping to rally anyone to my wanderings; which doesn't prevent many art lovers from surrendering to it, our unconscious minds being communicative.

Are you creating yourself with the aim of leaving a trace — a testimony of your time?

I don't think about it... to bear witness, to leave a trace if that were to happen... I would simply be a contemporary of an era which will remain in our common history.

How would you define your style or aesthetic?

Figurative, sensual, erotic, insolent, distortion of bodies, somewhat mannerist, baroque, expressionist

Do you consider yourself to be part of a current artistic movement?

No, times have changed with conceptual art over the past several years, street art, and what awaits us with L.A.

In the 70s, only abstract art was favored by critics; figurative art, apart from a few rare exceptions, was neglected. People would say, "It's interesting but too literary!" Without being an activist, I participated with the "Critical Figuration" group in exhibitions that brought together artists defending figuration.

What is the relationship between your art and intimacy?

A descent into hell, and the ascent back to pure heaven... a completely intimate experience that I don't hesitate to share.

Are there other artists who inspire you?

I am self-taught and felt swept along by the flow of generations of artists I admire and who inspire me, yes of course, since my beginnings with Toulouse-Lautrec and then those of my more advanced generation whom I met at salons and exhibitions.

Do you have any ongoing projects that we should be following?

At the moment, I'm mostly focused on setting up my workshop. I sold part of the house I had in Carrières-sur-Seine and I'm still not fully settled in the one I recently bought in Charente-Maritime. I'm still working, though, with its ups and downs... I'm fulfilling my orders and keeping an eye on my auctions, where I'm a regular participant in this secondary market.