Jean-Baptiste Maitre

Currently in progress: Colin and Nayirah

Jean-Baptiste Maitre is currently developing a series of paintings that revisit and renew the genre of history painting, depicting key media moments from the late 20th and early 21st centuries—such as Colin Powell’s 2003 UN address and Nayirah al-Sabah’s testimony preceding the Gulf War. Set against scenes drawn from personal memory, the project is examining how contemporary events turns into personal history.

Colin Powell with Red Stripes (2025) Oil on linen, 100 x 150 cm
This large-scale painting reimagines Colin Powell's critical 2003 UN speech on Iraq. The image is generated from a description provided by an AI agent, leading to a noticeable factual error: Powell is depicted wearing a red striped shirt he never wore. The artwork uses this historical mistake to explore how memory and history are often distorted, especially through digital interpretation, showing how the past is easily and vividly reconstructed inaccurately.

This Person Does Not Exist, 40 x 50 cm, Oil On linen, 2025
The image is based on a face generated by the website ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com — meaning the person depicted has never existed and will never appear again. The painting becomes the only physical trace of a non-existent individual, a kind of portrait without a subject.

I’m interested in how painting, which historically anchors memory and identity, can now also give presence to someone who has no history, no biography, no life. It shifts the role of portraiture from representing a real person to calling someone into being. The uniqueness lies not in likeness, but in the act of giving them a body through paint.

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Currently in progress: Colin and Nayirah

Colin Powell with Red Stripes (2025) Oil on linen, 100 x 150 cm

This large-scale painting reimagines Colin Powell's critical 2003 UN speech on Iraq. The image is generated from a description provided by an AI agent, leading to a noticeable factual error: Powell is depicted wearing a red striped shirt he never wore. The artwork uses this historical mistake to explore how memory and history are often distorted, especially through digital interpretation, showing how the past is easily and vividly reconstructed inaccurately.