Jules de Balincourt

French, born 1972.

In a stylistic amalgam of Pop and folk, abstract and figurative, Jules de Balincourt mixes traditional oil paint with tape, spray paint, stencils, and other "low" materials. Offering social critique, de Balincourt's paintings evoke an unsettling ambiguity, whether in their scenes of anonymous figures in post-apocalyptic landscapes or in their wild mix of flat, colorful abstraction. "It’s my own sort of escapism," he has said. "Everything inspires my work: lived experiences, cultural and social phenomena. But it is more and more about that internal gaze, a mix of these utopian and dystopian ideals." Once called the "mayor of Bushwick", de Balincourt ran the Starr Space in Brooklyn for three years where he hosted projects by artists including Terence Koh, Harmony Korine, and Ryan Trecartin; he currently maintains the space as his studio.