BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1976 in Besançon, Jérôme Conscience is a visual artist.

He joined the École des Beaux-Arts de Besançon in 1995, where he studied under Didier Marcel, Michel Giroud, and Gérard Collin-Thiébaut, who had a profound impact on his artistic approach. In 2001, he obtained his national diploma in visual expression with honors and set up his first studio in the city center of his hometown, where he lives and works. He quickly gained recognition for his work centered on language, developing an approach where words become material and image.

He then produced numerous works and screen prints and then participated for several years in the Art Paris fair with his friend Paul Bourquin, publisher and screen printer. His work was also supported by François Barnoud, collector and gallery owner, who exhibited him from 2005 and accompanied him until his death. He presented his work in numerous contemporary art fairs. Since then, he has presented his work in personal and collective exhibitions in France, (notably at) L’ISBA in collaboration with the FRAC Franche-Comté, at MIAM in Sète, at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Besançon, as well as in several galleries in Paris and in the provinces, (the Challier gallery).

His work explores the evocative power of text through painting, photography, and sculpture. The word becomes raw material, connecting the intimate and the universal. Fascinated by the unspoken, he questions what is said, unspoken, or felt, making each word a presence, a rhythm, a pulse that resonates with each individual.

ARTISTIC APPROACH

Jérôme Conscience explores the depths of language and human emotions through a diverse artistic practice, combining painting, photography, video, and sculpture.

At the heart of his work, the written word—or mockery—become a raw material, a bridge between the intimate and the universal. Fascinated by what is unsaid and what is heard, by innuendos and slips of the tongue, he explores the tensions between what is said (unspoken) and what is felt.

His pictorial works, often created in acrylic on canvas, are distinguished by their formal minimalism and conceptual impact. Monochrome backgrounds, sometimes white or hypnotic in color, accommodate words or phrases crafted with a precision that evokes the methodical gesture of a builder. This contrast between the softness of color and the intensity of the textual content gives his works a singular poetic, political, and erotic power.

The themes addressed by Jérôme Conscience are vast and profound: love, death, eroticism, beliefs, politics, and sex. These intimate and universal subjects reflect a search for authenticity and a confrontation with the human condition. Each work becomes an invitation to reflect, feel, and question the truths hidden behind appearances.

Each word acts like a mirror, reflecting the aspirations, anxieties, or contradictions of those who contemplate them. The importance of the sound of sentences and their musicality is at the heart of his practice, where each word, each arrangement, must ‘ring true’. His works invite a silent dialogue, a face-to-face encounter between the work and the viewer, and then between the viewer and themselves.

​The artist also plays with space and context. His works, designed as modular installations, evolve according to the locations where they are exhibited. Never permanently hung, they adapt to their environment, offering a different reading, renewed by light, architecture, staging and the viewer’s eye. Jérôme Conscience’s work also questions temporality and memory, exploring the transience of the moment and the durability of ideas. Each work becomes a trace, a poetic vestige of the passage of time and a music that accompanies and obsesses us.