Jephan de Villiers

Artist recognized all over the world, and recently celebrated by the show "The child who ..." at the Festival d'Avignon, Jephan de Villiers since the 1960s continues to deploy a unique work in the landscape of contemporary art. It takes its source in his childhood and in an intimate perception of nature. He was born in Chesnay on April 4, 1940. In 1976, during a trip to Brussels, Jephan de Villiers discovered the Sonian forest and picked up the first "wood-body" foreshadowing of the Voyage en Arbonie. From then on, everything he uses comes from this secret world of plants that have fallen on the earth where they rot, get lost and are transformed. These roots, these birch bark, these bugs, picked up during his walks in the forest, will become nomadic peoples, forests on the move, angels riding giant bears. These people of dead wood advance in long, silent parades, strange tribes of an imaginary territory?