These first paintings explore a sensitive subject for me : solitude. As a child, I suffered deeply from the way others looked at me and from being alone. I never felt like I belonged, and I struggled to make friends. These scenes directly echo my elementary school : the playground where all the children played, while I stayed hidden under the covered area, my little refuge. From there, I would watch the other “real” boys mastering the art of making friends or flirting with girls.
I portray myself as an adult, as if returning to those places with my own desires, ideas, and the person I’ve become today, gay and proud. The architecture in these scenes is inspired by French modernism : pilotis, ribbon windows, monochrome façades — symbols, to me, of the school’s coldness and rigidity. Yet, I’ve always been fascinated by this style, there’s something falsely pure about it that I find deeply poetic.
Having grown up in the south of France, I wanted to capture that generous light — casting strong, shifting shadows like a living pattern. It also carries a touch of Los Angeles, in its brightness and warmth.
details :
This painting reflects the contradiction and paradox of my last romantic relationship. The water gun becomes a metaphor for love and generosity, the kind of boundless giving one offers without restraint. But over time, that same generosity can shift, twist, and turn into a threat. The object of affection becomes a weapon, a symbol of rejection and the violence that can come from it. Through this image, I explore that fragile moment when unconditional love turns into fear — when the intensity of feeling turns back against the one who loves.
The swimming pool is a recurring theme in my paintings, one I’ve explored for several years. It represents a space that is both intimate and symbolic : the setting of my first emotions, the first glances I cast toward other boys. It’s a place of self-discovery, of awakening desire, but also of freedom.
The pool embodies a feeling of lightness and wholeness, a suspended moment where the body floats, freed from social weight, and everything seems possible. It is both a space of memory and of fantasy, at once real and imagined.
I miss Paris. I wanted to paint its unique architecture, so distinctive, so charged with memory. To do so, I chose to depict a storefront, which for me symbolizes the city itself. Paris is a city of desire and consumption, like all great metropolises.
The boxes of pool floats become a metaphor for our modern relationships, this way of “consuming” others, constantly searching for someone better, more beautiful, more interesting, or more intelligent. Yet in the end, everyone is the same. We believe we have choices, but they are narrow, almost illusory. Moving from one lover to another becomes an endless quest — a search for meaning and fulfillment in a world saturated with images and interchangeable desires.
Within this modernist architecture, the figure seems lost, almost fading away. I like the idea that he is both neon and transparent, as if, despite himself, a light emanates from his body. A light that illuminates others, that might even guide them, without his awareness.
That’s what I wanted to express in this painting: how, even in sorrow, a certain brightness can appear. This light — fragile yet persistent — can take many forms : a person, an album, a film. Something, or someone, that touches us and keeps us warm, even when everything else feels dim.
JEAN BOSPHORE 