JEAN MIOTTE: L’Invitation au voyage

Some artists take the understanding of their art to the very furthest reaches. Jean Miotte pushed the experience of life very far. He did not just want to paint: he had to paint. Painting became essential to him, in order to live. He traversed the self through the act of painting, with his sights set on a truth that, like a mirage, projected itself ever further away. This was how he travelled, towards a point that would bring him closer to the mystery of life. And this path, which took him on a journey within himself, also led him to the four corners of the world: to Syria, to the French cultural centre in Damascus, where he gave lectures; to the museum in Aleppo, where he exhibited his work; to China, where he was the first Western artist to be exhibited after the death of Mao Zedong; to Germany, where his second wife Dorothée Keeser, a great patron of his work, was from; and to the United States, where his foundation was based from 2002 to 2013.

What at first glance may appear to be a gestural style of painting, sometimes dazzling and incisive, sometimes trembling and delicate, is in fact the trace, or rather the testimony, of a continuous motion towards inner realms. Each work represents a step along the path of this journey, which is not theorised but lived through experience. A self-taught artist, Jean Miotte did not identify with any particular school – neither New York nor Paris. He made his way alone, from one encounter to the next. He bounced along when opportunities arose as others may jump from stone to stone to cross a stream.

At the age of 19, while engaged in military service, Miotte caught tuberculosis. He was diagnosed with a cavity in his right lung “as big as a potato” and was given just three months to live. Miotte left the hospital and headed straight for the Côte d’Azur, to enjoy the sun for one last time. When he returned to Paris and paid a visit to his doctor, the cavity in his lung had shrunk to the size of a ten-cent coin dime.

“What on earth have you been doing lately? asked the astonished doctor.
Nothing more than living as I please,” replied Miotte, before launching into an account of the extraordinary life that he had been leading.
For Miotte, life always prevailed over death, pulsing and gushing over his canvases, chasing away the shadows to make way for light.

Jean Miotte : Travels Beyond / A Journey Within
Camille Laura Villet
Essayist, PhD in philosophy and psychoanalytic anthropology