From his early childhood in Haiti, Jean-Jacques Gabriel has been focused on seeing, shaping, and amplifying beauty, which he defines as “a mixture of what circumstance commands and infinity implores”. The son of painter Jacques Gabriel, he painted before he could walk and later studied painting and drawing at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. While in art school, Jean-Jacques fell in love with the radical presence and inwardly aimed embodiment he found in Yoga. It served as a complimentary balance to form focused observation and creation of figurative art making.
Jean-Jacques has a rich facilitation history that draws on years of careful, critical, and caring work with groups of all types. Drawing on more than two decades of teaching visual art, nonviolent communication, yoga & partner yoga, breathwork, and Thai massage, he marries a focus on self awareness with authentic connection. Jean-Jacques started teaching yoga while working with Marshall Eddie Conway, a former Black Panther and political prisoner, and his mentorship helped root Jean-Jacques’ wellness work to community care and justice.
Those roots have grown to nourish people and groups in public schools, prisons, yoga studios, yoga teacher trainings, retreats, and large festivals. Those roots call him to serve all and to center Black bodies in the healing modalities and the trainings he leads. In addition to sharing practices that foster more presence, connection and freedom, Jean-Jacques loves learning from and laughing with his two daughters. He loves steeping in stories while drawing portraits from life. He loves to be in service of beauty.