James Barnett, Jean Jullien and Sophie Douala

The first to take to the (virtual) stage at our online Nicer Tuesdays last month was famed illustrator and artist, Jean Jullien. Dialling in from Brittany on the west coast of France, Jean took us through his process for making work “in the time of Covid-19” which for him, started on the day of his birthday.

As fans and followers of Jean will know well, his approach to illustration is to create “graphic musings” on a whole range of subjects, comedic and serious. As a result, Jean began this period by doing the very same, figuring out his own response as things were still very much up in the air. This grew from personal reactions through to working with many of the social efforts and charitable initiatives that have appeared and astounded the artist in recent weeks.

Taking the audience through a few examples of these works created very recently, Jean discussed a large range of work he’s made in reaction the crisis, whether it’s a piece in support of the British Red Cross – a charity dear to his heart as his wife, Sarah, was a nurse at the Royal London Hospital for a number of years – through to a piece for Only, a brand in New York, or an editorial commission for theWall Street Journalon communication. He also weighed in on his love of painting, using this slower period of time to work on this side of his practice. Although for a range of platforms and initiatives, each artwork Jean shared featured his trademark honesty.

Jean signing off his Zoom talk by iterating how, although this situation is awful, one good thing is “that we can bring creativity into the home for everyone”.