JONE HOPPER ©

JONE HOPPER

Born in 1977, Jone Hopper is a French street artist. In the late 80s, he learned his craft in the streets through the emerging movement at the time: graffiti. He wrote his name in the streets, on walls and on trains. Known for his spray-painted characters and tags, he created the TBS (The BrutalStyle) collective with Skepa and other committed graffiti artists. We don't know much about this artist because he stays true to the spirit of graffiti and wants to remain anonymous, believing that it is the work that should be promoted, not the person. Absent from social media, never attending exhibition openings, he is a faceless artist, remaining a true enigma except for a few gallery owners who know. Comparing his painting to a Hip Hop song, he acts like a sampler...sampling, cutting, assembling, thus creating new images. His latest cycle of paintings is particularly significant because it blends the connotations of Brute Art (always a source of inspiration for Jone) with those of Cubist painting, particularly Picasso. These "Neo-Picassian" works, created only with freehand painting, through the use of acrylic paints, wax crayons and sprays, have a formidable visual impact and confirm that Hopper is among the most interesting emerging artists in Europe.