User:CircleC/Jaybo Monk

Jeremie Baudouin a.k.a. Jaybo Monk (born 1968) is a French artist currently living and and working in Berlin, Germany. Jaybo ran away from home at the age of 14 eventually landing in Berlin-Kreuzberg in the early 1980′s where he spent time as a graffiti writer, street actor, and hip-hop musician.

At the beginning of the 1990′s, influenced by Berlin's youth culture and fashion scene, Monk founded the streetwear label “Irie Daily” and the cultural magazine “Style”. Even today, urban subculture is the driving force behind his artistic activities. This is especially true of his paintings, whose erratic and chaotic natures directly quote various fragments of urban subculture. His themes often plummet to great psychological depths where lightness meeting existentialistic melancholy, aggressiveness meets passion and a seemingly standard romantic streak and visionary dimension are prevalent.

Vaguely suggestive of Francis Bacon, Jaybo’s paintings, brushstrokes, and figural characterizations often quote from contemporary culture. Additional influences of Asian art and slivers of the world of Walt Disney make appearance. Jaybo himself characterizes these sorts of stylistic quotes as “visual reflexes,” designed to engage the observer in the immediate scene by using a high-level of familiar elements. It rests with the public to create meaning behind the artwork by allowing these imaginations to play out and by superimposing the pictures with their own experiences. Jaybo was born in 1968; he lives and works in Berlin.