Jean-Paul Cleren

Fruit of an imperative constitutional necessity, the creative activity of Jean-Paul Cleren is never gratuitous or pure fantasy. The artist, whether he likes it or not, always attaches meaning to his work and it is indispensable to go beyond appearance to analyze this meaning because it is beyond the appearance that the " We begin to wonder about himself and others. And it is this interrogation of metaphysical essence which is the principal virtue of the art of Jean-Paul Cleren.
Like all works of art really inspired the paintings of Jean-Paul Cleren "give to see". They always expect from those who watch them an effective participation, never imposing an interpretation but suggesting them all. Baudelaire noted that: "it is the nature of truly artistic works to be an inexhaustible source of suggestions. We love this painting which calls for our full participation and the pleasure that this participation provides.
We also like Jean-Paul Cleren's painting for his elegance, elegance being understood as a mental attitude that tends to transform reality into an aestheticism of conventions recalling the ideal of the Mannerists who, at random from the different epochs of painting And their various techniques, were able to remain faithful to this rejection of realism which allowed them to treat the most equivocal, even the most scabrous, subjects without ever falling into sensualism or vulgarity.

The nacreous perfection of these impassive women keeps us, secures us. We believe it to be serene, we have the impression of recognizing it, we rely on it, we contemplate it without suspicion. There is the trap, the mirror to the larks: we will soon be the toys of this calm appearance, there is no worse water than the water that sleeps and we will understand at our expense that this reassuring beauty has not interfered In our quietude that to better put it in check, to ravage it.

There can be no question here, in spite of the many meetings we have had during this brief study, to affiliate Jean-Paul Cleren to any school. All these encounters are subjective, fortuitous and the aesthetic of the painter as well as his purpose are his own.

This is why we will not attempt to define who his spiritual masters were, for despite the luck of being able to approach at a very young age the literary and artistic celebrities of France in the 1960s, Jean Cocteau, Marie-Laure de Noailles , Dali and Marx Ernest, Jean-Paul Cleren, who was open to the cultural contribution and enlightened advice of this intellectual elite, is never really influenced by anyone and must be presented as an autodidact.
Of course, he frequented the academies of painting for a long time, and the remarkable assurance of his technique would suffice to prove it if need be, but what he is, above all, is a specimen of the race of "gladiators" Artists, for they always struggle against fashions and academics whatever they may be.
Like any true creator, it is above all against himself that the painter must struggle and struggle, if he did not exist, in the existential sense of the term, and we are the amazed spectators of this struggle that Ingres Exalted: "It is only when fighting that one acquires something and, in art, combat is the punishment one gives oneself. What we know, we must know with sword in hand ".
Jean Pierre Vaguer