JEAN MALLARD

Born in Paris in 1997, Jean Mallard grew up fascinated with Moebius’s comics and Miyazaki’s animated films and fell in love with drawing from a young age. He never let go of this passion.
In 2015, he got into the School of Decorative Arts in Paris where he learnt about comic books, animation, serigraphy and engraving. His preferred techniques are watercolours and gouache paint, which he has been using since childhood and with which he continues to create vast and welcoming worlds. His universe is inspired by popular Russian paintings, Indian miniatures, Japanese etchings, as well as the work of artists like Douanier Rousseau… The series of illustrations he created after moving to Naples in 2019 resulted in his first exhibition “Via Miracoli.”
His drawings have been selected for various illustration festivals and he received the Bologna Grand Award in 2018.

His vivid colours and sublime gradations, which he works in the manner of an oil glaze, are Jean's signature: several layers are superimposed so that the colours blend into each other, from the lightest to the darkest. It's a very long, slow way of working with watercolour, which is essentially a quicker gesture. It is precisely this counter-use and technical precision that make up the richness of this young artist's work. From the paper, which he works to obtain a completely flat surface, to the finely selected pigments, Jean Mallard leaves nothing to chance. He takes as much interest in the support as in the material, in order to make watercolour his own in a unique way.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Jean is represented by the illustrators agency LA SLOW.