Background
Jef Aerosol was born on January 15, 1957 in Nantes, France.
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2007
Jef Aerosol was born on January 15, 1957 in Nantes, France.
Jef Aerosol is a self-taught artist.
Aerosol started his career as an English teacher, but his desire for music and art in general slowly made him change paths. Initially, the subjects for his stencil work was he himself. Following this, he used the rock generation personalities, like Elvis Presley or Jimmy Hendrix, and froze their portraits between two lanes, whether they were stars or not, each one became a VIP (Very Important Pochoir) for him.
In 1982, he spray-painted his first stencil in Tours, France. This was a self-portrait, that he produced from an enlarged photo taken at a photo booth. A year later, Jef Aerosol took advantage of his years in London and began teaching English at a college in Tours, while continuing to create street art in that city.
In 1985, he was on the first meeting of the graffiti and urban art movement in Bondy (France), on the VLP's initiative, with Speedy Graphito, Kim Prisu Miss Tic, SP 38, Epsylon Point and other artists.
In 1986, Aerosol wrote the very first book on the subject of street art — "Vite Fait, Bien Fait" ("Done Quickly, Done Well").
After working hard and fruitfully for an almost a decade, he slowed down in 1992. Due to the teaching responsibilities, making music, buying a house and being a father, Aerosol made fewer stencils on the streets. In 2002, he returned to the streets with a clear perspective and human size pieces, now thought of as his usual.
In 2007, Jef Aerosol published a gallery of portraits in "VIP: Very Important Pochoirs".
In November 2010, Jef painted a stencilled mural on the Robert Musil Museum in Klagenfurt (Austria).
He was also invited by the French Embassy in Tokyo and participated in "No Man's Land", a very successful and highly prestigious event, along with many French and Japanese artists, such as Speedy Graphito, Christian Boltanski, Claude Leveque, Georges Rousse and others.
Currently, the artist is busier than ever, with schedule booked until the end of the year, like it was in 2014 and 2015. Nowadays, Jef lives and works in Lille.
Jef Aerosol is mostly known as a pioneer of what is now called "urban art" and he remains a reference and an influence among street artists of the younger generations. His work stands out due to the red arrow in all his drawings, but which doesn't have a precise explanation.
He is most famous for his "Sitting Kid", a stencil, symbolizing a young child, who is alone and withdrawn. This work became famous around the world and is now part of the Wall of China. Also, "Chut" is his biggest work — it measures 350 square metres.
Aerosol's works are represented by Galerie Zimmerling & Jungfleisch in Saarbrücken, Germany, Wunderkammern in Milan, Wunderkammern in Rome, Galerie Martine Ehmer in Bruxelles, David Pluskwa Art Contemporain in Marseille, French Art Studio in London and Galerie Laurent Strouk in Paris.
