Philippe Jaccard, a self-taught artist, was born in Switzerland in 1957. He left school after completing his primary school certificate. After various attempts at apprenticeship and small jobs (from washing dishes to baking), he joined (thanks to his mother's connections) the municipal police of Geneva. His only passion was painting. He sometimes abandoned his post to go back to his apartment and paint in uniform. At the age of 35, the state of great depression that has been his since adolescence worsened, leading the Swiss authorities to classify his case as one of permanent incapacity for work. Philippe Jaccard has been living since thanks to the allowances linked to his state of health, enabling him to devote himself entirely to painting.

 

There is nothing, or almost nothing, on the web about Philippe Jaccard. In forty years of painting, he has exhibited only six times. He has no computer and does not use the Internet or social networks. He could have been a monk, living away from the world and devoting himself to his painting. He still thinks about it: ‘’They have large spaces in the monasteries, I could paint there without being disturbed’’. He says that painting saved him from the psychiatric hospital.

 

Solitude is omnipresent in Philippe Jaccard’s work, a solitude that appears serene, soothing, stripped of any sophistication other than that of a sensuality, both deep and light, existential, of the pictorial act. ‘’With age, we strip ourselves of all things’’ he says. Return to childhood: the house, the tree, the silhouette. Represented as a child would, without ambiguity.

 

And always, an endless number of self-portraits. Why these self-portraits?

When asked this question, Philippe begins his response as he often does: ‘‘It’s like that, I don’t know…’’ Then he says: ‘’You get up, you get dressed, you walk: these are self-portraits. Everything you do in life is a self-portrait’’.

 

‘‘It's beautiful’’, says Philippe Jaccard every time he shows me one of his small paintings on A4 paper. ‘’It's beautiful’’, he keeps telling me with each new image offered to my gaze. ‘’It's beautiful’’... In front of certain self-portraits, he adds: ‘’It's moving’’. His way of expressing it is disarmingly sincere, like those simple sentences of early childhood that assign what is perceived as a state of fact and leave no room for comment.

‘’It's beautiful… I’ve been criticized for saying 'it's beautiful’ too often. But why not say what is?''

 

Since he discovered this technique of oil painting on A4 paper three or four years ago, Philippe Jaccard has been making several paintings a day. They are all disarmingly beautiful. The term fits in. It seems to be really about disarming the suffering deeply inscribed in him. Pacifying the pain. A ritual of redemption.