For the past three decades, L’Atlas aka Jules Dedet Granel has been showing the past through the prism of the present, acting as a conduit through which diverse art movements may dialogue, free of any barriers. Absorbing the best of the graffiti, optical, abstract, minimalist and
geometric art movements while injecting his research on writing and calligraphy, he adds a new layer to that which already exists. Successfully embedding the history of
writing into the history of art and bringing optical art inside graffiti, his life is an investigation into endless variations of lines, squares and rectangles.
Born in 1978 in Toulouse, Jules began tagging in the streets of Paris in 1990, but instead of painting figurative characters, he was drawn to letters. It came naturally as
both his grandfathers – Pierre Dedet, owner of Parisian bookstore Le Divan, and philosopher Gérard Granel – were publishers, so he was raised surrounded by tomes on art.
Having parents who edited films for renowned French directors, his go-to material quickly became resistant, highly adhesive and easy-to-cut gaffer tape, an accessory found on the movie sets on which he grew up. After
dropping out of university at the age of 21, where he had studied art history and archaeology, he travelled from France to Morocco, Egypt, Syria, China and Japan to learn
calligraphy, sigillography and tai chi with masters Hassan Massoudy, Moulay Smail Bour-Qaiba, Mounir Al Shaarani and Zhang Aijun.