Biography

 

Jean Constant was born in Paris in 1949. His mother's family originated in the Black See Greek colony of Simsikov (a village now called Demirköy), later moved to Constantinople before emigrating to France at the end of World War I.

Jean spent most of his youth in private and public boarding schools in France before rejoining some of his family in the US. He resettled in San Francisco where he attended the Art Institute. He worked as a muralist for the San Francisco Art Commission and a photographer for European agencies. This lead him and a friend (the future founder of Art- Public Promotion ) to record the revival of the mural movement in California and throughout the country in the mid-seventies.

Jean later moved to Phoenix, AZ. as gallery director, attended MCCC and ASU and participated in different local artists organization. Founder of the Arizona Artists Program, he was able to bring to both 1984 Presidential conventions an unique roster of most Arizona professional artists of that time.

In 1985, Jean relocated to Los Angeles and joined a colony of artists in a major artist complex of the La Downtown area, The Brewery. He was also involved with downtown Los Angeles LACE and several other local art organizations.

Jean Constant has now been living in Los Alamos, New Mexico, for the last 7 years. This highly scientific environment has provided him with a fertile ground for his new personal artistic research. He also continue to participate in many aspect of the promotion of the visual arts as Public Art consultant, chair of the local Art in Public Places Board and producer of several TV series on art, film, and culture. Jean has also done consulting work for the Forum for Science and Arts as exhibition coordinator, the New Mexico Sculptors’ Guild as executive director and is now teaching Visual Communication and Digital Media Technology at the Northern New Mexico College.

Jean strongly believe that the duty of professional artists is not only to acknowledge the esthetic of the past but use our collective inheritance to help integrate art further into contemporary society and develop a new artistic language for future generations.

His son Cyrille is a budding sound & pixel sculptor.

Watch Jean Constant recent interview on UCTV