Jean-Marie Cherruault

Jean Marie Cherruault is an artist who lives and works in the Vosges in Epinal. As a child he was impressed by a painting by the great Master Georges de la Tour which gave birth to him as a painter. Self-taught, it was by observing copyists at the Louvre that he began his long apprenticeship by reproducing the works of the great Masters. His admiration is directed towards the colourists and the chiaroscuro masters from Verrmeer to Caravaggio, he particularly likes De la Tour, Velasquez and the painters of the 17th century. Adept at a technique close to hyperrealism, he paints only in oils. The cinema also influences his work for framing, dynamic shots and certain blurring effects. After a period of "naive fantastics" which could bring him closer to certain Flemish artists like Brueghel, his work is oriented towards deliberately disturbing themes which borrow from the romantic universe of Lewis Carroll and from the cinema of Tim Burton. We can also discern in him cross influences of Bosch and the Danish Master Hammershoi.