In 2004, 2005, and 2006, the Espace A VENDRE showcased the work of J-L Verna during group exhibitions (+ de FUNK, Vendu, Open). In 2007, in collaboration with his Parisian gallery “Air de Paris,” a solo exhibition will highlight in Nice—where the artist was born, lived, and worked—a personal, strong, recognized, and uncompromising work. At the same time, the gallery’s second space and the facade tondo will be offered for the very first time to the paintings of a talented young artist: Jérôme Robbe. Playing with the true-false pictorial deconstruction, he brings meaning to the confrontation between the viewed and the viewer. The central idea is not to lose the viewer but to lead them to question what they perceive.
Born in 1966 in Nice, Jean-Luc Verna lives and works in Nice. Since the late 80s, he has blended performance, music, drawing, photography, and video in his artistic practice. Early on, the artist naturally intervened on his body. Tall and muscular, it is tattooed with stars and other motifs.
Jean-Luc Verna has many piercings, metallic prostheses on his teeth to cover his smile with sparkles, and colored or patterned contact lenses that give his gaze a satanic flair. He often wears makeup and leather clothing— a perfectly staged body that both offers itself and protects. Jean-Luc Verna loves being photographed. He is sometimes a rockstar: sings and dances with his band, the Dum Dum Boys. He is also a film actor and has been able to play every role in the movie Body Double X by Brice Dellsperger. Not all his forms of expression are necessarily equivalent, but they form a coherent whole organized around drawing.
