French sculptor, photographer and painter Jean-Paul Turmel was born in Tournan en Brie (Seine-et-Marne) in 1954. Turmel describes his passion for sculpture and the creation of three-dimensional works as the inspiration for his non-objective forms. They are heavily etched and often layered, with relief impressions enlivened by light and dark hues. The expressive, heavy strokes of colour reinforced by the aquatint process bring depth to the abstract forms he imagines. His subjects are often fine...

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  Biography of Jean-Paul Turmel

  French sculptor, photographer and painter Jean-Paul Turmel was born in Tournan en Brie (Seine-et-Marne) in 1954. Turmel describes his passion for sculpture and the creation of three-dimensional works as the inspiration for his non-objective forms. They are heavily etched and often layered, with relief impressions enlivened by light and dark hues. The expressive, heavy strokes of colour reinforced by the aquatint process bring depth to the abstract forms he imagines. His subjects are often fine figures, but Jean-Paul Turmel also creates series of abstract subjects with broken lines and sharp contrasts.
  It is not unusual for the creation of an aquatint copper plate to take dozens of hours, often days, before he considers the result satisfactory. His aquatints are intrinsically unique in their creation.
  Jean Paul Turmel has created monumental works. Each time, he remains faithful to his vocabulary of forms that allow him to play with light, light areas, dark areas. Whether he's sculpting, drawing, painting or engraving, for the exterior or interior of a site, the result of his work always reveals a form derived from the practice of origami, the traditional Japanese art of folded paper. His photographs reveal his sources of inspiration: the human body, of which all that remains is an abstract silhouette, the movement of the bullfight, or the movement imposed by the rapid movement of the train in the landscape seen through the window.Jean-Paul Turmel has numerous gallery exhibitions to his credit, as well as a large body of monumental work. From 1974 onwards, he exhibited mainly in Parisian galleries, but also in Alsace, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. In 1983, the artist created a carton of tapestries woven by Jean Marie Lancelot. In 1994, he created the main façade of the Ivry-sur-Seine household waste plant, which became a 4,000 m2 sculpture. That same year, he exhibited ‘Les Gardiens de mémoire’ at the University of Strasbourg, a group of 5 sculptures that are highly representative of his work. The slender form, in this case sheet steel worked by folding, is always present in his work, whether it be sculpture, work on paper, engraving or photography. These 5 human silhouettes are reminiscent of antique busts of thinkers, writers, philosophers and repositories of knowledge.
  

  

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