BIOGRAPHY

 At the age of six, I accompanied my father when he went to Brazil, where I would stay eight years with my stepmother, the popular singer Carmen Costa. She encouraged me to pursue my interest in becoming an artist and, at our house in Fortaleza, I met painters, musicians, and singers (for example, Luis Gonzaga, who was a major contributor to popularizing the rhythms of Northeast Brazil throughout the world).

 I came back to the United States to attend high school and then studied at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art, majoring in Fine Arts. During that time, I worked alongside the in-store team decorating the windows of Wanamaker’s, the most famous department store in Philadelphia.

 At the age of twenty, I came to Paris and was hired by Catherine Harley, creator of the first agency for junior models, and became a model for publicity photos. I started to paint and became interested in the theater. To pursue that interest, I went to Rome to work as a photo model and, motivated by my desire to work as an actor, took acting lessons with the first Actor’s Studio founded in Italy. After a few theatrical performances, I decided to return to Paris.

 I performed then in English at the Studio Théâtre of Paris with Marpessa Down, under the direction of Gordon Heath, and in French at the Théâtre de la Cité Internationale, where I played Ghelderode. At the same time, I was introduced to the art of mime under the direction of Maximilien Decroux. I also became assistant decorator to the well-known decorator and costume designer Donald Cardwell. Later, I created a striking décor for the Brazilian restaurant Dona Flor, of which I was the founder and owner.

 Since the 1990s, I have devoted myself entirely to sculpture, painting, and collage, and have developed a personal technique that revolves around working with plastics. With this technique, I combine and fuse plastics with other materials of natural origin, such as fabrics, papers, leathers, and hemp.

 I have participated in exhibitions in various public and private spaces, mainly as a part of collective exhibits. Examples include the 100th Salon International Bijorhca, Puzzle des Artistes de la Bastille, and the Salon des Arts Visuels in Paris (December 2018), as well as exhibits in Montrouge, Guyancourt, and at Galerie Anders Hus.

 In my art, you can find both the tropicalist influence of my childhood in Brazil and the expressionist abstraction created by Jackson Pollock. According to the critics, the baroque aspect of my work manifests itself through “a controlled sense of light, color and movement”.

                                                                                                                                                                    Jules Koehler