Jules De Balincourt

Jules de Balincourt is a painter and sculptor interested in paradox and the ways in which his fantastic fictional scenes might challenge the viewer’s understanding of space and time. The artist moved with his family from Paris to California in the early 1980s, and his work applies an alien skepticism to absurd scenes. Be it a beach or an aerial view of an anonymous city, de Balincourt regularly shifts scale, extracts details, and glosses over large portions of his compositions with gestural swatches of color or prominent lines that muddle the illusion of depth. Stencils, tape, knives, spray paint, and oil paint illustrate only the most vital details. His works are often curt and satirical, scrutinizing the scenes he depicts or maintaining the simplicity of his subject. He is often lumped into the Outsider art category because he diverts attention from the past by sinking his teeth into the particular physical truth of the modern first world: it is increasingly difficult to exist in nature, but we continue to surround ourselves with modern marvels that encourage this unstable reality.

De Balincourt has exhibited at Kassel Kunstverein, Germany, The Modern Fort Worth, Texas, Rouchechouart Museum of Contemporary Art, France, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Canada, Espace Louis Vuitton, Hong Kong, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Brooklyn Museum, New York, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Paris, Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, Moscow, MACRO Museum of Art, Rome, MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts, and Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain, among others. He participated in the 10th Havana Biennial in 2009, Prague Biennial 3 in 2007, the Whitney Biennial in 2006, and Greater New York at MoMA PS 1 in 2005.