In the Flow

Julien Calot, La Saison des Pollens, acrylic on canvas

You cannot walk into a Julien Calot show without feeling warmed on the inside, a feeling that will stay with you long after you leave. It is a world of love, lightness, and joy - where all living things come as one and even melancholy feels sweet.

Self-taught, Julien has painted since childhood. He is also a musician, an engineer with a love for mathematics, the Chief Creative Officer of McCann Paris, and the Global Creative Director for L’Oréal brands.

I popped into Marie Jose Gallery on a crisp and sunny Saturday morning in London for a chat with the artist. His direct, soft gaze put me immediately at ease. He radiated a slightly guarded but genuine warmth, a kindness that, at least to my perception, was reflected back to us so beautifully from the vivid and joyful canvases to which my inner child was immediately drawn.

Julien Calot, La Foret Tropicale, acrylic on canvas

“A long and gentle journey inward”, Julian’s landscapes are woven from memories, imagination, and meditation. Childhood trips to the Pyrenees, travels to Fiji, a close encounter with an Eagle Condor in Chile. The vivid colours come to him naturally when he meditates.

“I’ve built these paintings as inner landscapes — layers of memories and emotions composing intimate spaces. They reflect the joy of natural cycles: the passing of seasons, the rhythm of the animal world, the interlacing of living matter, light, and color.” (Julien Calot)

Julien Carot, Landscapes of the Mind, acrylic on canvas

Julien takes the deep dive into his art only after reaching a place of genuine joy within. Joy, not happiness, he was careful to explain. He defines joy as a burst of excitement contrasted to the constancy of happiness. Joy (this is me extrapolating) is exciting because it is intense and transient, the “high” which cannot exist without its cyclical counterpart, the “low”.

This sweet harmony in the tension of opposites - joy and melancholy, Winter and Spring, order and chaos - drives Julian’s compositions. As in life, this balance is not static but flowing, cyclical, constantly evolving and recalibrating.

Julien Calot, Le Cycle de L'eau, acrylic on canvas

As the eye follows his compositions, the natural elements, animals, and colours in his landscapes are continuously changing and finding new harmonies as they flow from top to bottom and meander across the canvas.

Julien Calot, La Fonte des Neiges, acrylic on canvas

In La Fonte des Neiges (“The Melting of the Snow”, above), we find the landscape on the edge of Winter and Spring, the desaturated colours of winter balanced with the saturated greens of Spring, bright purple flowers bursting from pristine white snow, the flowing waters fluctuating between cold and saturated blues as if saying that all is cyclical, beautiful, alive.

Looking at this painting, my friends and I were warmed by the sun and cooled by the snow, we found caves and waterfalls we wanted to explore. Each of us was drawn to a different place within it, a place we claimed as our own, where we lingered and did not want to leave.

Julien Calot, Le Vieux Singe, acrylic on canvas

Not surprisingly Julien loves water and is a dolphin at heart. Water - flowing, moving, constantly changing - is often the focal point of his compositions.

The animals populating Julien’s worlds are reflections of his inner state at the time of painting. There is a monkey being comforted by the birds, its face radiant with the feeling of being truly embraced. There are cats joyfully frolicking in vibrantly lush landscapes, a debonaire jaguar lazing care-free on a tree branch above a rather self-satisfied Toucan; eagles flying high in the sky above rainbows and waterfalls.

Julien Calot, Le Cheval Bleu, acrylic on canvas

Julien told me that each painting embodies his spiritual energy. I think all genuine art embodies the spiritual energy of the artist - that’s what makes it genuine. Julien’s works, at least for me, are vibrating with energy, breath, life.

Julien balances his two worlds of painting and advertising much as he does the compositions of his paintings - as a harmony of dualities, the poetic and spiritual exploration of painting balanced with the conceptual art of advertising whose primary aim is to draw attention to the object or idea.

Julien Calot, Les Glaciers, acrylic on canvas

Julien Calot’s art has been exhibited in Paris, where he is based, as well as Hong Kong and across major art fairs in Europe and the United States. The well curated Wonderscape marks Julien’s first solo exhibition in London. If you’re in London and haven’t visited yet, you’re missing out.

Through 10 January at Marie Jose Gallery
16 Victoria Grove, London W8 5RW
Tuesday - Saturday, 10am - 5pm
Catalogue
Julian’s Instagram