Jérôme Mesnager

Jérôme Mesnager joined the Boulle school in 1974 to train in cabinetmaking, where he then taught. In 1979, he took comics lessons given by Yves Got and Georges Pichard, teachers at the Duperré School of Applied Arts.

In 1982, he was one of the founding members of Zig-Zag, a group of around ten young artists who decided to take to the streets by creating graffiti and organizing ephemeral performances in abandoned factories.

On January 16, 1983, he created the Man in White, a symbol of light, strength and peace. Jérôme Mesnager has reproduced this white silhouette throughout the world, from the walls of Paris to the Great Wall of China.

In 1990, Jérôme Mesnager left his childhood home, where he had met Jean-Pierre Le Boul'ch, founded his associations and created his first works, to settle in the 20th arrondissement of Paris. He exhibited a series of fences on the theme of combat at the Loft gallery, which published a catalog.

In 1995, he created a large mural entitled “It’s us guys from Ménilmontant” in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, rue de Ménilmontant.

Jérôme Mesnager has often collaborated with Némo, whose favorite character is a black silhouette of a man in a raincoat wearing a hat. This collaboration associated him with the Parisian urban art movement, notably with Blek le Rat, Miss Tic, Jef Aérosol, Némo, and Figuration Libre in the early 1980s.

In 2006, Jérôme Mesnager created a series of paintings inspired by art nouveau and art deco. The same year, he carried out an intervention at the Hôtel des Académies et des Arts in Paris by invading the space with his “White Bodies”.