ARTIST PORTRAIT
Born in Europe. Raised in Caribbean Islands, Africa and France, JAABI's origins take place in Africa, America, India, Europe and Asia.
Child of a family of nine brothers and sisters from different houses he shows interest for Arts through music in his mother’s house, hosting several music instruments from different places of the world. She gives him his first guitar at 14 and displays his first chords. Self-taught he goes further on with this instrument captivating his passion, and releases from conventional studies commitment. Much later some of his parents will say resentfully: ” we should have put you in a Buddhist school...”
At that time teenage and youth sound more like a bluesy episode to a mix-blood kid trying to exist in the European community… His first job initiative to become a Luthier, a stringed instrument maker, finds no access. Odd jobs and other experiences more or less interesting in visual and handy grounds lead him to end there as a sound engineer as he would never make a living out of his guitar.
Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley provide his musical inspiration as well as Miles Davis among many others.
Despite much interest for civilisations and philosophies Jaabi never found himself at ease in the western life-style where he was living at that point in urban surroundings.
When he left for the south Pacific, age 33, he had already travelled through Africa, India, and Asia, Amazon and Caraïb.
Arriving in Oceania for the first time of your life is like a rebirth. A rebirth in the heavens.
Moorea, Maupiti, Rarotonga, Huahine…The Islands. “ I had truly the feeling of a revival. Closer and closer again to the waves of the Pacific Ocean I had really become someone else:
I was… ME , a human being”.
The islands, the light and above all the feeling of the Nature. Something REAL.
The villagers of Huahine welcome him gently among them as it is the heart of their tradition, and he has a taste of local Art from the amazing paintings of Huahine painter Bobby Holcomb.
After a year, Jaabi leaves the Pacific for Africa where he stays about a year. There he starts painting out abstracts on woods he finds on his way. He lives in the neighbourhood of painters and carvers in Bassam, Ivory Coast. Then back up to Senegal he spends several months in ‘Castel Jahate’ on the top of Gorée Island -the slavery trade island Memorial of... "humanity"- where he lives close to a community of African dreadlocks artists. Musicians, Dancers, Painters, Carvers, Tailors, Drums makers, poets living there with their families. There he holds his very first exhibition with water colours on paper and acrylics on wood.
A few months stop in Baleares -Formentera Island- introduce Jaabi to the art of oil painting along with “Gallery Avalon” Flower Power Painters, locally renown masters in psychedelic Artworks of mystic inspiration.
He then returns to Oceania year 1994 where he has been living till nowadays.
First exhibition in the Pacific at Gallery Te Mana- Huahine, Oils on woods and Canvas.
Jaabi lives for a few years in the light of a tiny sandy islet, Motu Topatii , by himself in a coconut leaves hut planted in the middle of the magnificent scenery of the two islands of Huahine by the bay of Maroe.
This is where the villagers come to meet him one day and ask him to decorate their ‘UO’ a giant custom kite that would be showcased to 1996 Samoa South Pacific Arts Festival. “I just had not enough paint to cover that surface so I thought of using soil… And I just worked it out! Our human heritage of forever living through the ages before besides and beyond us".
Painting on the TAPA confirms his dedication to make this Art authentic in the Nature concern. Jaabi goes to Fiji islands to learn how to make the bark cloth and settles there for several years, dweling in a small house on the beach of Leleuvia Island in Bau waters. Indigenous and contemporary Art are vivid due to permanent custom life in Fiji and neighbouring islands. The influence of local artists and his participation to festivals and collective exhibitions contribute to express his will for Pacific cultures.
It should be fair to mention the contribution of all the relations and friends taking part to that ARTVENTURE with their support and confidence. Let their names find grace in the heart of Mother Nature, she knows best. "Among those I have to mention my Fijian friend artist-painter Josie Crick who helped me so much in finding my way in Fiji and the Grand Pacific; and my friend Dorothy Levy who did so in Huahine island."
Year 2000 and the millennium celebrations is the launch of what is gonna be a ten years exhibitions touring around the South Pacific Islands and more : getting the Earth Paintings on Tapa known and recognized. “Being silent in technique is going further in Arts. There is no secret, no tabu in transmitting, it is a very basic recipe closer to feeling than knowledge".
EXHIBITIONS
Water colors on wood & paper
Castel Jahaté, Gorée Island -Senegal-february 1993
Gallery Avalon, Formentera -Baléares Islands- june 1993
Oil on canvas
Gallery Te Mana -Huahine- april 1994
Gallery Te Mana -Huahine- april 1995
earth paintings on Tapa
Fare Potee Maeva -Huahine- may 1997
Millennium Park, Taveuni -Fiji Islands- january 2000
Alliance Francaise de Suva -Fiji Islands- january 2000
Gallery Le Chevalet, Papeete-Tahiti- april 2000
Assembly of Polynesia, Papeete-Tahiti- july 2000
South Pacific Festival of Arts -New Caledonia- november 2000
Alliance Francaise de Suva -Fiji Islands- march 2001
Leleuvia Island -Fiji Islands- july 2001
French Embassy, Port-Vila -Vanuatu- august 2001
Electron Libre, Paris -France- june 2002
La Mola, Formentera -Baleares Islands- july 2002
Melanesian Arts Festival, Port-Vila -Vanuatu- august 2002
National Art Exhibition, Suva -Fiji Islands- october 2002
Alliance Francaise de Suva -Fiji Islands- january 2003
Gallery Olivier Creation, Papeete -Tahiti- june 2003
French Embassy, Port-Vila -Vanuatu- december 2003
Gallery Mama Peni, Fare -Huahine- may 2004
Hawaiki Nui, Fare -Huahine- october 2004
Alliance Francaise de Suva -Fiji Islands- march 2005
Gallery Mama Peni, Fare -Huahine- june 2005
Hotel Tenape, Uturoa -Raiatea- january 2006
Leleuvia Island, Fiji Islands-september 2006
Melanesian Festival of Arts, Suva -Fiji Islands- october 2006
Chapelle Saint-Pierre, Roquebrune-sur-Argens -France- june 2007
Quartier des Arts Saint-Julien, Uzès -France- july 2007
Maison Royale de Tanna, Saint-Laurent du Var -France- july 2007
Cloître de la Cathédrale de Fréjus -France- september 2007
Leleuvia Island -Fiji Islands- april 2008
Leleuvia Island -Fiji Islands- april 2009
Gallery Au Chevalet, Papeete -Tahiti - December 2009
Gallery Au chevalet, Papeete -Tahiti - December 2010
Gallery Au chevalet, Papeete -Tahiti - November 2012
Waisiliva Gallery, Leleuvia Island, Fiji Islands - May 2015
