Jean-Michel Alberola

Painter

Jean-Michel Alberola is a French artist associated with Figuration Libre, a movement that emerged in the 1980s and advocated creative expression without reference to culture, borders or genre. Throughout his career, he has explored the concept of the “end of painting” by refusing to confine himself to painting as a medium and by incorporating other media — text, photographs or film – into his works.

In his view, the role of the artist is to resist the erosion of meaning and communicate that effort to us. There have been a number of exhibitions of his work at leading museums and has executed commissions for many institutions, including the Musee d’art Moderne and Le Palais de Tokyo in Paris. He teaches at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, and is a prominent figure on the French art scene. Since 1982, he has been represented by the Daniel Templon gallery in Paris.

About the Collection

“My aim wasdecorative in scope. I borrowed details from lithographs inspired by walls that I’d painted at Le Palais de Tokyo (Paris) in a way that did not allow one to see the entire text or image.

I didn’t want to cover the whole plate, because I like seeing food against a white background. The limits imposed by the plate format were also interesting: while the decoration cannot go beyond the outer edge of the plate, it can overlap some on the inside. The difficulty resided in creating 12 completely different plates unified only by their graphics.

It was interesting to have to deal with differences within the same project. That was quite a challenge!”

Dinner Plates

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Dessert Plates

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Bernardaud 150th Anniversary Artists