Explores adolescence and masculinity in illustrations of Paris based artist, Jules Magistry.
“I started drawing very early while I was being watched by my grandparents copying manga and comics. I started law school after high school but, I quit after a month. Reality wasn’t really like defending the oppressed and innocent (no shit) and the mentality of the students was so square I couldn’t bare it. So I started to do the only thing that I could really do : drawing. At that time I stopped drawing for a long time, as a teenager preferring drinking and partying. I chose a school randomly which was teaching graphic design to reassure my parents, it seemed that it was a « real » job. I didn’t know anything about art school and so I started studying graphic design in Paris for 3 years, with 1 hour illustration per week. Very frustrating.
I got my diploma doing an illustration book about a french poet Saint-John Perse and started working as a graphic designer in publishing houses. It bored me very quickly and decided I preferred doing small jobs, but focus my work on illustration. So lately I’v worked mainly for magazines like Papier Magazine, Erratum, Brain or Kiblind.
I will admit to having a few clear obsessions: adolescence, violence, and masculinity. Dealing with adolescence allows me to approach violence and masculinity in a way that is as explosive as it is sensual. Adolescence is a short period of time that is experienced as a very long, very melancholic one. Living under the weight of the forces of oppression, rejection, and doubt, these boys – even as they try to love themselves – become time-bombs. Here, these male “gangs” correspond to the codes of masculinity at the same time as they manipulate them – they embrace them, tenderly.
They are forever trapped in this languor, in the suburbia, in the nineties.” – Jules
Find more: @julesmagistry