Biography
Born in 1940 In France, has developed a singular body of work over more than five decades, at the crossroads of art, poetry and ritual. Self-taught, he quickly distanced himself from academic paths to invent a deeply personal visual language, shaped by an acute sensitivity to the natural world, its traces and its silences.
From the 1960, s onwards, he began gathering materials in forests, undergrowth and marginal landscapes : fragments of wood, leaves, seeds, barks, and plant fibers. These elements, often destined to disappear, become the raw material of a meditative, slow and deeply embodied practice.
Internationally recognized, Jephan de Villiers has exhibited in numerous institutions and galleries across Europe, the United States and Japan, while maintaining a deliberately discreet stance, faithful to an introspective and independent approach.
The world of Jephan de Villiers : An Archaeology of Sensibility
Jephan de Villiers’ universe is one of traces, fragile memory and the passage of time. His works seem to emerge from an ancient world, like the remains of an imaginary civilization or the remnants of a forgotten ritual.
His artistic gesture is discreet, precise, almost silent. Each assemblage, drawing, and slender figure appears inhabited by an intimate presence. His work engages recurring themes : disappearance and metamorphosis, the relationship between humans and nature, the buried memory of landscapes and the fragility of living forms.
Jephan de Villiers builds a radically contemporary body of work, that questions our relationship to the world, to ecology and to the sacred, without ever addressing them directly.
Body of Work : Drawings, Assemblages and Figures
Jephan de Villiers’body of work unfolds through several complementary mediums, forming a deeply organic whole :
Created from collected natural materials, Assemblages lie at the core of his practice. Wood, fibers, leaves, seeds and pigments are arranged with extreme delicacy. These works evoke relics, fragile bodies or primitive architectures, suspended outside of time.
His slender, often anthropomorphic figures, seem both human and vegetal. They embody silent presences, “watchers”, that inhabit space without fully occupying it.
His drawings extend the language of the assemblages. Executed in ink, graphite or natural pigments, they function as notations, mental maps or archaic forms of writing.
Together, these works forma coherent, demanding and immediately recognizable oeuvre, where each piece resonates with the others in an almost ritual continuity.
Currant Exhibition
The other Land, Exhibition by Jephan De Villiers
From May 29 to 5 July 2026
Gallery Retour De Voyage, L’Isle sur la Sorgue
With “The other Earth”, Jephan de Villiers invites us into a world shaped by wood, fibers and selected fragments, gleaned along the paths.
His assemblages and delicate figures seem to whisper to one another.
Subtle, quietly enigmatic presences appear.
Between nature and imagination, everything remains in motion, like a story still unfolding. An exhibition to explore with curiosity