Interview with Patrick Jannin

Q. Could you tell a little about yourself.
My name is Patrick Jannin, aged of 36. I live alone, except when my son, aged of 4, is with me, two days a week. A girlfriend.
I'm very interested by psychology, that I studied during 4 years at university, for philosophy ( Nietzsche & Sartre ) and for literature in general. Music also take a great part in my life ( from John Zorn to Ministry ) and I simply can't work without music. I need that energy ...
Q. I read that you worked 2 years with people suffering of mental illness. Your drawings seem to express a mental anguish or disease. How did this experience shape your artwork?
Yes, I worked 2 years with people suffering of mental illness. It was during and after my studies of psychology. Then, I was very passionate by all that, reading a lot of books about madness and not only scientists studies. Lautreamont was my god, and nonsense my religion. But in reality madness ... oh, it was too hard, so much violent for me. Every day, living - cause when you work with, you also live with - with people full of shit and piss and blood, crying and suffering and hurting themselves, and you too. No, that wasn't a job for me. I was becoming violent too in fact. Bad reaction indeed. I preferred stop working and decided to just draw and paint. And I accepted too to not win enough money !
About my drawings ... I'm very anxious, that's normal that my drawings express that. A lot of things are boring me. People disturb me. I don't understand their behaviour. I often feel they are false, stupid and dangerous. Always wanting more power, always lying to get it. I try to express all that in my draws. It was often asked to me who were that monsters I was creating. We are the monsters. I just show it, as a mirror ... Perhaps my experience shape my artwork. That's sure. How can believe everything is alright when you are every day in front of an animal called human ? When you learn that love doesn't exist, because it's just desire, and we only react in step with our hormones. We're living in the liar, and without that we couldn't exist.

Q. Can you talk about the art scene in France? Are they receptive to your work?
I don't know how is the art scene in the other countries. Here there is an Official Art, and if you work for an institution, you have to love it. " Oh,it's marvellous, I don't understand anything but I'm payed to believe that is Art". Art schools make a very good propaganda in that sense. Those artists win a lot of money, live in great lofts and are famous. What else ? Everybody know that. I just don't care. In the other hand, there is a lot of galleries and newspapers ( not a lot of, a few in reality ! ), that pretend to defend an other point of view. More sensitive, more "pure". Oh, how they stink !!! For example : a new fashion called neo-expressionism ( like neo-punk, neo-rock, neo-shit ). OK, the gallerists decided it was time to sell that, so you can see a lot of neo-Bacon ( yes, really ! and they call that expressionism ! ) painting dark canvas, and crying with their dark voice we are living in a dark world. No, the art scene is not receptive to my work in general. Only a few people who try to understand, or who accept an other vision, an other way of living and thinking. I've been recently noted by the man who created the movement Universensualiens ( www.artsetmondes.com ). He tries to organize exhibitions, and to make people react. Good man .....

Q. How long have you been drawing?
Can I say that I have always drawn ? Yes, perhaps, I've always liked that. I was a poor lonely child ( booh-hooh ! ), obliged to create his own world, his own friends. I've always bored me a lot. To draw was natural.

Q. Do you usually have an idea before you start?
No, or it's very rare. And most of the time, the draw will be good for the rubbish box. I HAVE to draw. If I can't, I become sad and nervous.

Q.Would you consider these pieces automatic drawings? Or do you have sketches before hand?
Yes, you can tell that. I just obey to my inspiration, watching and listening the characters on the canvas. What they want, and where can we go together. It's OK for me when I feel a sort of balance, an harmony.

Q.How long does an average drawing take?
That's depend I can spend 5 days on a little canvas, as a 100x120 cm. will just take me one day. I need sometimes to destroy characters on whom I worked for a long time. Because something happened in my life, I changed of feeling. But the destruction is a part of creation, very important for me. Always this relation with violence .....

Q. Are there any artists that influenced you?
It could be very stupid to pretend that's wrong ! I'm so receptive ! My first love was for the surrealist creation, then I discovered Dubuffet, the "art brut" ( raw art ? ). I even joined few years ago the movement "art singulier", and some of my canvas are in one of the most important museal collection ( Musée de L'Art en Marche - Lapalisse ). The way I draw now is recent. Just 3 years. People of this movement are ... People who draw like children ... I'm fed up with that. It's too easy, and fashionable now.
And before all that, I was making comics. Underground labels like the Belgians of Frigo, comics of the eighties, when the world of the edition was more free than today ...

Q. Any favorite artists?
Georg Grotz, Otto Dix. I recently saw drawings of Fred Deux. Amazing ! This man is crazy ! Totally.

Q. What advice would you give to fellow artists?
Art is a vocation. Accept to live for art or learn an real job.

Q. Do you have a studio? If not, where do you usually work?
I was having a studio. But I was in an illegal situation. In November 06, the politician of culture (sic) of my city made me get off. Since, I work at home, pushing the table and the sofa to install my canvas.

Q. Are you participating or drawn to anything outside the art world?
When I was studying in art school, I'm graduate in graphism, I worked 2 times for organisations. Once was for a day-nursery. I had to draw pretty babies. Awful. On the first version, they were having big teeth. Not accepted ...

Q. Any plans in the future?
I joined Figuration Critique and will exhibit with them 2 or 3 times this year. I try to not think a lot to the future, that make me depressed!. Contact information.

www.patrickjannin.com
pjannin@aliceadsl.fr
www.flickr.com/photos/pjannin
and on Saatchi online