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Jonathan Delachaux
Le Voyage en Italie
2009
Acrylic and collage on canvas
110 x 140cm
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 he narrative works of Jonathan Delachaux grasp our attention as we merge into the world of his imaginary characters, Vassili, Johan and Naima. The golems he has created for his art are human-like yet macabre. Delachaux’s works are composed of series of extended storylines that explore the mythological resonance of the figures within the painted scene.
Jonathan Delachaux was born in 1976, in Môtiers, Switzerland. He started producing artworks as a child and had his first art exhibition at the age of thirteen. Delachaux attended the École Supérieure d’Art Visual, in Geneva. Upon graduating in 1998, Delachaux was awarded the Bourse d'Aide à la Création pour Jeunes Artistes, which allowed him to travel to Tokyo and later to New York. During this time, he continued to document the events, experiences and episodes from the lives of his imaginary characters by means of painting, photography, sculpture, text and music. Influenced by the artist Roman Opalka, Delachaux is adamant to include time and aging of his imaginary characters in his paintings.
Delachaux’s professional debut started as one of the winners of the Swiss Art Awards and has exhibited internationally at venues including the Kunsthalle Zürich, Centre d’Art contemporain, Osaka Triennale, FIAC, and the Armory Show, Galerie Une, Kunsthaus Glarus, New Galerie of France, and Galerie Haas and Fischer. Delachaux has received a number of prestigious awards and honors including, the Alice Bailly Prize, the Swiss Art Awards, second place in the Franco Swiss Art Plastic Divonne-Les Bains competition and he was the first place winner of Art Interview 16th International Online Artists’ Competition. Galerie Haas and Fischer in Zurich represents Delachaux.
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Jonathan Delachaux
Le Golem
2008
2 x Acrylic on canvas
170 x 120 cm each
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Jonathan Delachaux: I was born in a little village in the mountains called Môtiers, Switzerland in 1976.
Art Interview: What was it like growing up in that area?
Jonathan Delachaux: I was a little bit bored because there was no one my age that was into painting or making music. I was always envious of people living in bigger cities, and I wanted to move to one. Eventually I made friends with many artists of my age and met collectors by making a lot of art, exhibiting in other places and creating Internet shows.
Art Interview: What do your parents do for a living?
Jonathan Delachaux: They are both teachers.
Art Interview: I understand that your father is also an art collector?
Jonathan Delachaux: Yes, he has a very specific art collection. He commissioned about seven hundred different Swiss, German and French artists to create labels for Absinthe while it was illegal in Switzerland. He has more than a thousand labels for the drink but he stopped the project when Absinthe became legal again.
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Jonathan Delachaux
La nouvelle chambre de J.W.
2009
Acrylic on canvas
105 x 140cm cm
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Art Interview: Did your parents encourage you to become an artist?
Jonathan Delachaux: Yes, definitely. They let me build a studio in the basement and I had my first exhibition when I was thirteen. I’ve continued to do one or two exhibitions a year since then.
Art Interview: Were you exhibiting in galleries already at the age of thirteen?
Jonathan Delachaux: Yes, my mother had a little gallery in the village. A journalist wrote about my first exhibition and someone from the neighboring city offered me a bigger exhibition. I was a very successful painter as a child. I sold everything cheaply and bought musical instruments with the money. I did those exhibitions for 7 years until I joined the École Supérieure d’Art Visual school in Geneva and started my imaginary characters project, which I am exhibiting in established galleries with now.
Art Interview: Did you always have the intention to become a professional artist?
Jonathan Delachaux: Well, when I was 7 or 8 years old, I thought I might become an art critic, because I was told that there were too many artists and I that wouldn't be able to find my own place. But one day, I just decided to become an artist.
Art Interview: Where you able to imagine what life as an artist would be like at that age?
Jonathan Delachaux: I would say that 80 percent of what I imagined has come true. I had an image of painting alone in a workshop and 99% of my life has become painting in the studio. I never imagined the art fairs, and big openings, etc. but that is not very important.
Art Interview: How did you develop your idea for the imaginary characters project?
Jonathan Delachaux: When I entered the École Supérieure d’Art Visual I wanted to document the passing of time within my art. I liked the idea of an artist focusing on the same models for his entire life. For example, Pierre Klosowski always uses his wife as a model in his drawings. In his work you can see how she grows older and changes. I was very fascinated when I discovered Roman Opalka's number paintings, which document his progress through life. His works convinced me that I definitely wanted to document the passing of time within my art. I came up with the idea of obsessively painting the same three characters Vassili, Johan and Naïma for the rest of my life, but when I explained my project to all of my teachers they advised me to take another direction, because they didn’t believe I would do it for the rest of my life. During those four years at the École Supérieure d’Art Visual they didn't manage to change my mind and when I got my diploma they told me it had been a mistake to discourage me.
Art Interview: Were there any professors at the École Supérieure d’Art Visual that influenced you?
Jonathan Delachaux: Not really. I can’t remember learning anything from the teachers.
Art Interview: Did you have any influences at that time?
Jonathan Delachaux: Roman Opalka's work defiantly influenced me. Each series that I make is influenced by something, but by the time I finish a series I usually can’t remember what the influences were. Paul McCarthy influenced my series with Jean Louis Costes, which was shown at the Armory Show this year.
Art Interview: Before you received your diploma you traveled to India. What effect did that trip have on you?
Jonathan Delachaux: I was required to write a book for my diploma so I decided to stay in India for 6 months to work on my book. I went to Varanasi, next to the Ganges River. It was very nice there. I took music lessons and I had a little studio where I painted. While I was there I had an exhibition at the ABC Art Gallery, which surprisingly looked better than a Parisian gallery. It was a very beautiful white space and they had a rich collection. It was amazing to me to find a space like that in the middle of Varanasi.
Art Interview: What were you writing about?
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Jonathan Delachaux
Ragamala -Collection of short stories
limited edition
1997
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Jonathan Delachaux: I was writing Ragamalas. Raga is a form of music, but it is also a type of poetry from 17th century, medieval India. Raga mala is a family of divinity, songs, poetry and dancing. It is something that mixes art and belief. I was pretending that one of my imaginary characters was writing Raga mala in Geneva and another in Varanasi and that they were exchanging poetry once a week. Then I published a book of 35 Raga mala.
Art Interview: Have you ever had to work a secondary job to support yourself as an artist?
Jonathan Delachaux: Never. But music is a secondary job for me.
Art Interview: Are you working professionally as a musician as well?
Jonathan Delachaux: My art is more professional. My wife is the singer in my band and we just came back from New York, where we did 5 concerts and I had a solo show at the Armory Show. It was good, mixing music and art openings.
Art Interview: How has your music affected your painting?
Jonathan Delachaux: They are closely related. In 2005, we did a tour in Europe for one month, and I was shooting the shows, capturing the feeling of the tour. Then I created a fictional tour with my characters using those real images. I did maybe 30 paintings showing two of my characters touring in Germany and recording an album. And I used those paintings for the cover art of my album, where I was the DJ and played all the instruments.
Art Interview: Shortly after you graduated you had an exhibition in Tokyo. How did that come about?
Jonathan Delachaux: I got a scholarship from the Swiss government, which was worth 20,000 Swiss Francs (17,408.41 USD). I had just gotten married and my wife and I wanted to go to Japan. So we decided to travel for 6 months for our honeymoon. I intended my characters to meet Kyoko, who is an imaginary computerized character that sings in television commercials in Japan. But meeting the people that were creating Kyoko in 3D was actually not very interesting to paint, so I ended up doing some other paintings.
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Jonathan Delachaux
Vassili se prend pour Super Héros
(Vassili becomes a super hero)
2006
Acrylic on canvas - Diptych
140 x 110 cm each
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My wife and I had fun traveling and meeting people, but we ran low of money after three months. We ended up creating some puppets out of Coke cans, trashcans and garbage. Then we took them out on the street and my wife made the puppets dance while I played the clarinet. We had some problems with the Yakuza, because we made a lot of money, but we were able to live there for another three months.
While we were there I had an exhibition at the Gallery Le Deco in the center of Shibuya in Tokyo. After the show Johnnie Walker (Joni Waka), Tokyo's flamboyant and legendary art patron, came in and said that he wanted to buy all of the works. It was a funny meeting because he is a big character in the city; everybody knows Johnnie Walker in Tokyo. He took the paintings but he never paid for them. It actually worked to my advantage that someone stole the paintings because it would have been very expensive for me to ship them all back to Switzerland.
Art Interview: After that, you went on to New York, and had an exhibition in DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass)?
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Jonathan Delachaux
Paul Auster, Vassili, Johan and Naima
2002
Photomontage |
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Jonathan Delachaux: Yes. The purpose of going to New York was to meet the author Paul Auster. I wanted him to write a scenario for my next series, but I never thought he would do it. I began my contact with him by sending him two small paintings each month. I sent Paul Auster about 25 paintings with my characters in different scenarios that referenced his books. For example, Mr. Vertigo is a story he wrote of a guy who can fly. So I did a drawing with Vassili flying from Switzerland to New York. All of the works were somehow connected to Paul Auster's books.
I started sending the paintings from Switzerland, then from Canada and then from New York. I think he was disturbed because I did a photomontage on the computer that looked like a Polaroid of him and my characters on the street where he lives. Then I sent him an image of my character Vassili setting the Statue of Liberty on fire, which was supposed to remind Paul Auster of his book Leviathan. The painting was made on the 10th of September 2001. The next day on September 11th the attacks happened and I wasn’t sure if I should send the picture, but I did it anyway. He didn't like it.
Art Interview: Did he think you were stalking him?
Jonathan Delachaux: Yeah, I think he was afraid I was going to send him anthrax. When I actually met him at a bar he was screaming at me and totally out of control. He said, “Jonathan, you're pissing me off! You can’t do this shit in New York right now! You have to stop this! Your pictures are scary.” Then he left.
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Jonathan Delachaux
La réaction de Paul Auster
2002
Inkjet on canvas
240 x 300 cm
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I published a book called New York Psychosis showing all the images that I sent to Paul Auster and I included the work entitled La Reaction de Paul Auster. Paul Auster’s reaction was incredibly powerful. It was much stronger than any positive reaction I could have received. So, I took some pictures of the bar, and when I went back to Switzerland I reconstructed the scene by painting the bar in my workshop. Then I put my three characters at a table in front of a mural, so it looked like they were in the bar. I sat at another table in the middle of the scene holding a small painting of Paul Auster with my characters. I asked my father to put a wig and a leather jacket on to play the role of Paul Auster. The result of this complex set up was a photograph that I had printed on a canvas entitled La Reaction de Paul Auster. It is a very strange image because you can see the brush strokes on the mural behind us and they give the illusion of a painting.
I won a competition with the work and it was sold to an Israeli collector who was involved in the organization of Art Basel. The collector knew the father of my current dealer and told them that they should take Jonathan Delachaux. He lent La Reaction de Paul Auster to Galerie Haas & Fischer for a group show. That's how I met my dealer, Roger Haas. We have done two shows in the gallery in Zurich and I have exhibited with them at the art fair Artissima in Italy.
Art Interview: How did you create your figures?
Jonathan Delachaux: It took some time. When I began I didn't have a real academic basis and my drawing skills were not what they are today. When I painted the figures they came out looking like caricatures; their eyes were too big and they looked a bit spastic, which wasn't what I wanted. I wanted them to look alive, like real human beings. So, I decided to make life-sized sculptures to use as models. I built them out of wood and Plasticine and I made their heads over plastic skulls.
Art Interview: How do you produce your art?
This oral history transcript is the result of a digitally recorded interview with Johnathan Delechaux on March 19, 2010. The interview took place over the telephone between Berlin, Germany and Geneva, Switzerland. Brendan Davis conducted this interview for Art Interview Online Magazine. Elaine Mun wrote the introductory text at the beginning of this interview.
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