French artist Jean Labourdette aka “Turf One” began his love affair with art with graffiti as a youth in the streets of Paris. After some time, he found the graffiti world somewhat limiting so he moved on to working as a multi-disciplinary artist  including illustration, comic strips, painting, and film making.

Initially painting on canvas, Labourdette now paints on found objects including rusty salvaged metal, street signs, and discarded wood. Turf One is also a little obsessed with Victorian-looking midgets, Russian icons, dead things, carnival sideshows, and seedy theatre stages.

“Labourdette’s signature aesthetic evokes a unique combination of contrasting traditions such as 15th Century Flemish portraiture, Russian icons, and circus/carnival sideshows. He renders his male subjects in a meticulously fine level of detail, with highly defined wrinkles, facial hair and prison tattoos, suggesting colorful narratives of gypsy vicissitude. Abnormal bodily proportions in a range of extreme height or weight measurements are prominent, such as midgets and giants—some of which are obese or have distorted, shortened or elongated limbs.” (from Jonathan Levine Gallery)

Turf One’s work has been exhibited worldwide including Yves Laroche (Montreal, QC), Jonathan LeVine Gallery (New York), Fuse Gallery (New York), to name a few. He has also created art for Kanye West, Sony Music, Universal Music, the Canada Council for the Arts, Pound Magazine and Cirque du Soleil.

To learn more about Turf One visit Turfizm.com.

Sources: Thinkspace Gallery

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