Jean Claude Wouters has cultivated a broad sweep of artistic experiences.

For seventeen years, he was a dancer, working with the likes of Maurice Béjart and Lindsay Kemp, performing under the name Jan Six and Jean la Tache, in Belgium and Japan, and more recently at LACMA in Los Angeles (Crinoline Man) and MOCA in Tucson, Arizona (Walking Shadow).

He makes experimental films and documentaries, some of which have been selected at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes and have won prizes at the Prague Festival (1993), the New York Festival and the San Francisco International Film Festival (1994). He has also made films for luxury brands including Lancôme, Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent and Louis Vuitton. At the same time he has worked tirelessly at his painting and photography.

Exploring the theme of the portrait, he has developed a disturbing and innovative process.

Re-photographing a print over and over again, he injects into it the random play of the reflections of the light from the sky, ridding the portrait of any appearance and descriptive elements. He explores the conventions of photography, making use of its limits and its inherent contradictions. The portrait is revealed by this process of deconstructing the means of production.

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