Jean-Marc Bustamante was born in 1952 in Toulouse, lives and works in Geneva, and is considered one of France’s most renowned artists today. Since the 1980s, his artistic work has continuously evolved, engaging in a constant dialogue between sculpture, painting, and photography. Inspired by his deep connection to architecture and landscape, he creates works that impress with their vibrant colors and distinctive contours.
Since the early years of his career as a painter in 1978, Bustamante has distinguished himself through his unique approaches and techniques. His first “photographic paintings” presented large-format views of houses and buildings on the outskirts of the city, innovatively blurring the boundaries between photography and painting.
Parallel to his landscape representations, he also created sculptural works in his Interiors series, which can be described as “memories of cut objects connected to the body.” These influences are also evident in his painterly works, as he uses drawings as a starting point for his paintings and transforms them through the use of various materials and printing techniques on acrylic bases.
Bustamante’s artistic expression reached a peak with his series “Lumières” (1987–93). In this series, he printed black and white images from architecture magazines of the 1930s and 1960s onto transparent plexiglass, achieving a fascinating transformation of their appearance. This technique, which utilizes the influence of light and transparency, gave his works a unique luminosity and depth.
In 2003, Bustamante incorporated figures into his photographs for the first time when he conceived the Pavilion of the Amazons as a kind of “pagan chapel” for the Venice Biennale. In doing so, he combined photographic portraits, paintings, and abstract drawings on plexiglass.
His works have been celebrated worldwide in numerous solo exhibitions, including at the Kunsthalle Bregenz and the Musée d’Art Moderne Saint-Étienne Métropole (2006), the Tate Gallery London (1998), the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (1994), the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume Paris (1996), and the Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven (1992). Additionally, he has taught at various art institutions, including the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, and served as the director of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 2015 to 2019. His influence extends far beyond France, having participated in renowned exhibitions such as documenta 8, 9, and 10 (1987, 1992, 1997) and having his works presented in leading art institutions worldwide.