Jérôme Mesnager was born on January 29, 1961 in Colmar. He entered the Boulle School in 1974 where he received training as a cabinetmaker, which he later taught at that school. In 1979, he took classes with Yves Got and Georges Pichard, teachers at the School of Applied Arts.
In 1982, Jérôme Mesnager is the co-founder of Zig-Zag, a group of young artists who invest in “zig-zag the jungle of cities” and revitalize abandoned places with a lot of graffiti. Jerome wanders in these spaces and, January 16, 1983, paints on the wall of the Little Belt his first white man, “symbol of light, strength and peace”. From now on, the white body appears throughout Paris, exploring factories and abandoned stations without forgetting cellars and catacombs … before going to conquer the whole world: Italy, Senegal, Gambia, Mauritania, United States, Egypt, Japan, China, Russia… Today, the White Body is over twenty-five years old and several works already celebrate it.
In 1990, the artist left his parent’s house and moved to Paris. He showed works drawn on wooden fences at the Loft gallery, and published a catalog of these works. In 1995, he produced a large mural painting in the Ménilmontant street in Paris, “C’est nous les gars de Ménilmontant”.
Jerôme Mesnager is often associated with Nemo, a character with a black silhouette wearing a raincoat and a hat. He was part of the Paris street art scene, with artists such as Blek le rat, Miss Tic, Jef Aérosol, Némo, etc. and of the Free Figuration movement in the early 80s. In 2006, he produced a series of paintings inspired by art nouveau and art deco. The same year, he drew his white characters in the Hôtel des Academies et des Arts in Paris.
