Carnival atmosphere with painter Joël Crespin
On the edge of the forest, Joël Crespin creates in his studio or outdoors, cooks, gardens and raises hedgehogs.
His playful, carnivalesque world is instantly familiar: expressionist figures, shadows and vibrations created by thick material forming bas-reliefs, colours deliberately juxtaposed in a dissonant way, large, tense, open eyes, thick black outlines giving the figures a totemic character.
How Joël Crespin moves from the regularity of numbers to the exuberant energy of matter
As he was a good student in mathematics, the school directed him towards accounting. The accounting profession opened up a structured and stable career path for him, allowing him to work part-time and make room for painting.
He applied twice to the Beaux-Arts in Le Mans with a poor portfolio full of fingerprints, and was rejected. This failure would be his success, or his key to the freedom to experiment with his own personal style.
Seven years in a theatre troupe taught him to get to the heart of expression and seek out emotion.
His early paintings were expressionist and even neo-impressionist. Then he met a glue manufacturer who opened up new perspectives for him: collage, imbibition, repeated curling, the preparation of mixtures to create relief supports and suggestive surfaces.
Joël Crespin juggles between painting and sculpture
Beneath his calm and serious exterior, Joël Crespin plays, mimes and has fun.
He painted on wood for a long time, but when Cérès Franco pointed out that his works were too heavy to transport, he switched to canvas.
Glue, fabrics, primary colours in oil and acrylic, and oil pastels are used to create his wall sculptures and relief paintings. He makes his own paste-like mixtures, notably with beeswax.
It’s wobbly, asymmetrical, undulating. The artist inlays myriad dots or lines to establish series and rules, only to break them as he works.
A decisive encounter with art critic Francis Parent
His encounter with international art critic Francis Parent is a sketch that only Joël Crespin could experience: a freshly painted oil painting, a narrow passageway, an elegant and proud art critic who brushes up against it.
So Joël cleans the fashionable garment with turpentine and slips his card inside. The incident could have been fatal for him, but the quality of his work interests the famous art critic, who is not one to hold a grudge. A beautiful friendship ensues, along with successful exhibitions, including ‘Figurations de fin de millénaire’ at the Espace Belleville in 1992 alongside Basquiat, Robert Combas, Hervé Di Rosa, Jeff Koons, Miss Tic…
On two occasions in 2016 and 2018, he travelled to China with the Biennale Hors Normes de Lyon. These were two memorable opportunities to exhibit, sell paintings and meet extraordinary Chinese artists.
Whether working in small or large formats, in France or abroad, Joël Crespin plays with matter and light. Like jazz musician Archie Shepp, he plays within the limits of ‘harmony and counter-harmony’.
Joël Crespin's artistic community activities
Bringing together and uniting outsider artists
Every year in October, Joël Crespin, leader of a magnificent group, participates in the Comparaisons exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris.
The Comparaisons exhibition was founded in 1955 by Lilas Bug and Andrée Bordeaux-Le Pecq to counterbalance official art and present an encounter and comparison between current art trends. International figurative and abstract artists are divided into 38 groups with the motto: ‘Let us enrich ourselves with our mutual differences.’ (Paul Valéry)
Since 2013, Joël Crespin has led the group ‘Expression hors normes’ (Outsider Expression), which brings together 18 artists who share sincerity and authenticity: expressionists, obsessive, mystical and political, they produce emotion.
Diffuser l'art hors-normes et conserver ses traces
In a similar vein, Joël Crespin chairs Biennale 109, an event created in 1982 that showcases the works of 80 painters and sculptors, both established and emerging artists. A non-profit organisation under the French law of 1901, its mission is to promote communication and the discovery of talent, bringing together works by artists, both established and emerging, who all have a figurative vision of the world. The latest editions were held at the Design Bastille Centre in Paris’s 11th arrondissement.
Joël has recently become involved in a new initiative promoting unconventional art with the Maison Marguerites in Tusson, Charente. His mission is to build up the collection of this museum dedicated to outsider arts. It acts as a vehicle for dissemination to the public and support for extraordinary artists: restoration of works, publication of books, setting up workshops, commissions and artist residencies.
In addition to emotion, his theatre experience has certainly instilled in him a team spirit: Joël Crespin brings people together, directs them and orchestrates his peers with joy and good humour. And you should know, he’s a very good cook!
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