Jak Espi was born in 1966 in France, Salon de Provence to a carpenter father. The man, alongside his wife, made furniture and created kitchens. A childhood that today can tell us a lot about why the artist took the path that he did. The young Jak Espi spent his time playing in the family furniture workshop, among many tools and woodworking equipment.

 

A culture of surfaces, of the modern object, of storing as well as finishing, that the artist brings together with his passion for illustration. At the age of 12, he discovers Paris through its exhibitions and museums, from the Louvre to Beaubourg. Jak then spends a lot of time drawing: he works on his lines and colors.

 

Attending the Applied Arts Department of the Marie Curie High School in Marseille where art reigns king made its mark on his life’s path. "Drowned and sharpened in Art" as he likes to say, Espi tries his hand at painting. He moves into a studio and produces a series of paintings.

 

His influences wander between the work of Picasso, Bacon, Kandinsky and Miro, as well as Superdupont, heros of the 9th Art.

 

Because Jak Espi loves to laugh. He likes to deconstruct the French language into puns, he loves fun, "bullshit, because it feels good." Never trash, his approach carries within it a good dose of no-limit energy: "limits are made to be crossed, it’s important to know how to have fun with them, to play…For pleasure, curiosity or provocation. "Reflection and questioning drive Espi as he opens his horizons. The range of possibilities - creation as a principle of life - is infinite, and therefore must remain: "it is important that some questions remain unanswered." The sculptor moves forward in his creative path naturally: "My designs have always had a lot of texture. When my daughter was born, the desire to shape, to work with volume, was brought into my life. "Jak casts his artistic sights toward resin. A modern material, of which he tames the unlimited potential, always consistent with his no-limit desires. His new role as a father and the breastfeeding of his daughter bring him to the hilly terrain of work on the female body, especially its breasts. The chest, its dual masses, finds itself integrated in the work of the sculptor.

 

Jak comes from the world of illustration, of painting and drawing, and his graphic inclinations go on to naturally discover these curves. Isolated, staged, misappropriated or grafted – on the body of a very sexualized panther. Work high in color, dense productions, dyed with Do It Yourself derision: Jak Espi pushes and cracks open the doors of Contemporary Art and creates an expansive work for an audience that becomes widely International.