Jean Sebastien Raud, born in 1972, is a French sculptor who conveys the universal values of peace and tolerance through his art. He exhibits his work in France and abroad, which has received recognition in several countries. A rare holder of the traditional casting techniques of Auguste Rodin, inspired by the works of masters like Michelangelo and Gustav Vigeland, and having studied at the Beaux Arts school of Paris and with the works of the Royal Academy founded by Louis XIV in Versailles, he puts his knowledge within everyone’s reach through his teachings.
As an artist, his sculptures aim to raise public awareness on topics such as climate change, biodiversity, world hunger, terrorism and European construction, through a symbolic and educational language.
"Art must raise questions and educate people about their existence and environment. Unlike philosophers, artists do not provide written answers. Practicing art is a form of meditation, which allows us to create symbols for which there are not necessarily words. It is with this perspective that I began to sculpt, because the physical mass not only reproduces the visible, it also makes our spirit and mind visible. » - Jean Sebastien
Jean-Sébastien received training from professors emeritus of the Beaux Arts school of Paris, including Jean Cardot, professor of sculpture and creator of the bronze "de Gaulle" on the Champs-Elysées, as well as Robert Nogues, professor of casting, founder of the casting and molding workshop of Fine Arts in 1969, and statuary moulder for the Rodin Museum, Bourdelle and the artist Zadkine until 1997.
Jean-Sébastien is today one of the few holders of the ‘creux-perdu’ (so called waste-mould process) casting technique used by Auguste Rodin, having completed more than 2,000 castings. He masters modeling through a range of materials for creation (clay, plaster, wax), as well as finishing materials (bronze, marble, stone). He also has a thorough knowledge of human anatomy, based on the study of living models and the study of flayings (muscle men) of the reception rooms from the Royal Academy of sculpture founded by Louis XIV in Versailles.
At the age of 25, Jean-Sébastien became a professor and founder of the sculpture and casting workshop in the city of Puteaux / La Défense Paris. For more than 25 years, he has been transmitting the techniques of European sculpture, both traditional and contemporary, through practical and theoretical courses to more than 1,500 students.
AN ARTIST ENGAGED ON INTERNATIONAL ISSUES,
HOLDER OF A UNIQUE KNOW-HOW
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, as though rebuilding the world, Jean-Sébastien Raud has composed his work from the memories of our collective traumas.
Like Alina Szapocznikow, who modelled the sensual forms of her tumours as a way of reclaiming them, Raud confronts the wounds of his time through sculpture. At a moment when modesty seems to be clothing sculpture once again, the socially engaged sculptor performs an act of resistance: in cement, plaster, clay or bronze, he inscribes his humanism within the ideal of the nude.
Between triumphant energy and Christian pathos, neither invincible athletes nor martyrs approaching sainthood, his bodies are equal and politics becomes secondary: the artist speaks of humanity. World wars, terrorism, famine, global warming, sexism and degenerative diseases: his works unfold like monuments to thought. In the light of Rodin—from technique to models—he meditates on suffering in order to reflect more deeply on the future. From the chaos of events, Jean-Sébastien Raud constructs symbols.
With the disappearance of the “Wall of Shame,” he raises the heroine Europa to the summit of the union of peoples. In response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, he depicts Adam and Eve falling, like Angélique imprisoned upon her rock while Roger prepares to draw his sword. In response to the hopes of COP21, set upon the architectural miracle of the ancient pyramids, Jean-Sébastien Raud’s Sphere reminds us that the planet’s fragile balance remains dependent upon the human chain. Faced with world hunger, his skeletal child still stands. Faced with inequalities between men and women, his Vitruvian goddess becomes a tale of the life-bearing womb. To the hell of religious conflict, he responds with a Door of Faith, bringing together ancient gods and new divinities: an Olympus of Isis and Buddha, Hindu avatars, Christian celestial figures and the pagan Cybele.
Johanne, a bust of his grandmother with part of the skull laid open, gives her brain to Alzheimer’s research, revealing the unfathomable nature of its loss. Faced with the sixth mass extinction of species, displayed like so many sorrowful trophies, the artist offers the pregnancy of a hybrid Gaia behind the pietà of his dead Lotus. Like this Eastern flower, nourished by decay, Jean-Sébastien Raud’s works echo Baudelaire: “You gave me your mud, and I turned it into gold.”
A paradoxical beauty combining classicism and kitsch, a fantasy of Paradise lost and a philosophy of death as a creative force, this socially engaged sculptor offers us a body of work filled with hope and resilience.
Marie BOISSEAU
Art Historian
JEAN-SÉBASTIEN RAUD, SCULPTURE AS A FLAG