Gard Jules Milhau exhibits internationally

Jules Milhau is invited by the Analora gallery for an exhibition outside the walls in the heart of the new artistic district of Lisbon, Marvila, the Portuguese “meatpacking”. Caracola, the exhibition by Jules Milhaud, celebrates fado, this music of the soul and exile. An exhibition like a bittersweet saudade, the melancholy of a certain departure mixed with the hope of a desired return.

At 23, this will be his ninth exhibition. Here, more than 1,000m2 offer the perfect setting. In an old mythical cellar to express its poetry, its rhythm. The movement that animates him is a breath, a music that runs through all his works. He immerses himself in his Lisbon wanderings along the Tagus in the footsteps of the sailors and their vernacular language, a national treasure, Fado. Caracola, the marine conch which keeps the memory of the waves, is the common thread of its exhibition at 8 Marvila.

In the imposing old vat room, Jules Milhau imagined a dance of screens, a series of large-format canvases, and a flowerbed of azuelojos born from his collaboration with the famous factory Viúva Lamego.

Jules Milhau is 23 years old but he didn’t wait long to make a name for himself. From the age of three, drawing and painting became his language. His inspiration comes from his family roots: the Camargue, Spain, Algeria, Corsica… His world is profoundly Mediterranean. He divides his time between painting and his flamenco lessons. “ These emotions, felt during trips to Portugal and while listening attentively to the different musical styles of this country, have animated each of my paintings. This saudade or this inhabited lack as Pierre Barouh said in One of his songs, joins the rhythm of the Taconeo of the flamenco dancers, a tempo inscribed in my roots and in my painting work. », explains the artist.

In 2016 and at the age of 15 if you’ve been following closely, Jules made a name for himself with the “cilouettes”, a tribute to his great-great aunt who always dressed as Sonia Rykiel. It was also the year of the publication of a first book by Erick Bonnier: Cilou by Jules with a preface by Nathalie Rykiel.

The following year, in 2017, he held his first exhibition at Galerie 37, Aigues Mortes. Jules exhibits around thirty works there, such as his caged and free birds, perched on power lines, his slender bullfighters on tiptoes… “ The bullfighter series began a few years ago duringʼa walk in the family farmhouse. The rain had drawnʼstrange silhouettes on the cement walls ofone of the houses. JI took out my notebook, my box ofwatercolor and a brush that I dipped in a puddle ofwater. Little by little the characters became bullfighters in a paseo momentum. »

For Astrid de La Forest, painter-engraver: “ Swirl aroundʼan axis which would pass through painting, flamenco, family,exile, the Mediterranean, bohemia, bullfighting, vitality, youth, passion, the sun andshadow too… This would be the dance that Jules Milhau has practiced sinceʼhe is old enough to move. But Jules chose painting and painting, very naturally, chose Jules. He may have beenThe child represented on the right by Velasquez in the famous painting of Las Meninas, the one who observes. Thus the table becomes a Source ofʼinspiration for Jules, cthat’s wherehe is born. Lʼchild has a destiny. VSIt is he who will now give his own vision of things. He will paint as one breathes with the freedom that gives the gift of creation when it is as obvious as dancing, walking, or dreaming: that of restoring one’s inner world. Jules doesn’t ask himself any questions, he moves forward, he is quick, his painting is spontaneous, colorful and his passions little by little aresharpen. »

According to her, the universe he has always known inspires him. We’re talking about flamenco, bullfighting, the octopuses offered by the Mediterranean which flows through his veins and this almost obsessive painting of the Meninas. “ Jules is tenacious and passionate, he doesn’t care aboutʼhour nor the time thathe does. He paints. VSis all. One day, Jules will take his pilgrim’s staff and travel the vast world. HePerhaps he doesn’t need it, he who learned from the elders whoeducated and who loved everything their experiences had to offer. The passion that flows through his veins tells him above all thatʼwe must not waste time, let painting, dance, the sea, each moment breathe a new picture into him and thatʼWe must constantly drink from the Source. And stay therechild who observes in a corner of the painting the cacophony of adults with the hindsight of theartist. »