JISBAR’S ARTWORKS TO INFINITY AND BEYOND
Jisbar’s artworks are something unique and totally outside the box.
His main feature is the reinterpretation of the great classics of history of art with clear references to pop art and street art.
Jisbar’s works of art are on exhibition at the The Strip Gallery, which has recently interviewed the artist, to know better his work, and allowed me to publish it.
Jisbar’s artworks: an interview with the artist
Jisbar was the first artist to lunch a work of art into outer space in 2019.
His Mona Lisa was launched into the stratosphere, on board a carbon space shuttle, specifically built for the occasion, in order to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Leonardo da Vinci’s death.
To infinity and beyond!
“It was YouTuber Norman Thavaud the first who bought a canvas”, Jean-Baptiste Launay (Jisbar’s real name) stated, and probably at that moment his artistic career took off. Since then, in fact, it’s been a succession of collaborations with major brands (J.M Weston, Ducati, Armani, BMW, L’Oréal, Diesel in particular) and with celebrities, and he began exhibiting his works all over the world (Italy, Sweden, Abu Dhabi, London, Thailand, USA) and he even launched his reinterpretation of Mona Lisa into outer space.
The Strip Gallery , promoting culture of street, pop and urban art, offers for sale Jisbar’s artworks, which are a mixture of freestyle, pop icons, street style and everything that belongs to contemporary world.
Here are Jisbar’s answers to The Strip Gallery’s questions.
The Strip Gallery: When, how and why did you decide to become an artist?
Jisbar: I began painting when I was a child: my mother had colours and paint brushes at home, everything I needed. I was a child, I was maybe 8 or 9 years old, and I practiced when she wasn’t looking at me. I immediately fell in love with this language that I find more complete than the simple word.
The Strip Gallery: What were the most important moments of your artistic career?
Jisbar: The first time I exhibited my works abroad, in the USA. Then, I also remember the first time a museum contacted me to exhibit my work: it was 2015, and the President of the French Republic at that time, François Hollande, visited the exhibition in person.
And another important moment of my career was the recent collaboration with Ducati, a famous international brand, in order to arrange a charity auction.
The Strip Gallery: What is your style?
Jisbar: I simply prefer to say I’m a painter: defining a precise style is like imprisoning the artist, by building invisible barriers inside his mind.
The Strip Gallery: Many of your artworks evoke great masterpieces of the past, to give them at the same time, a pop and street style look. Why do you resort to the past? What masterpiece did impress you most?
Jisbar: I hadn’t the chance to study art, so I’m an autodidact. The best technique to learn and immerse myself in art history is revisiting it.
On the one hand, there was my will to learn art history and techniques used by the greatest artists, and by revisiting classical paintings in a more contemporary version, my aim is to pass down to others this know-how and this knowing. Only this way my mission is accomplished!
The Strip Gallery: In your works we can notice a multitude of writings. Are they your messages? Your dreams?
Jisbar: These writings are my ideas or things that cross my mind, associations of ideas, events I heard on TV or on the radio, quotations from music, or emotions I experience in that moment, quotations that make me feel good….we can define it as a mixture of many things that, consciously or not, cross my mind
The Strip Gallery: We can also notice some symbols, visible only in the dark…
Jisbar: It’s a technique I used at the beginning, because my paintings were copied, and it was the only way to add a sort of security seal to prove the authenticity of my work, differently from a forger. Unfortunately, forgers have found this technique, so I’m using other methods that, of course, I will keep secret.
The Strip Gallery: You decided to launch successfully a “Jisbar Mona Lisa” into outer space. Why did you do that?
Jisbar: I wanted to exhibit my work in a place in which nobody had ever hung a painting, different from an ordinary art gallery or a museum with white walls we are used to. I wanted to highlight the beauty of what surrounds us.
The canvas rose and fell in the space, alone, in the middle of nowhere, and is the image of the most beautiful exhibition I’ve ever seen. It’s an image that pushes us beyond the limits.
The Strip Gallery: What is the message you’d like to share through art? And what is your dream?
Jisbar: Stop taking yourself seriously and don’t waste your time in being negative. Every day I make a dream, more or less crazy, come true; but I create something I dream of. I go ahead and I’m very positive.
The Strip Gallery: Any future plans?
Jisbar: I have a lot of things planned! But I prefer that people discover the novelties through my Instagram account: it’s more fun with a photo!
To discover all artist of The Strip Gallery visit the page https://www.stripgallery.it/artisti/