Christian Bergeron

Great Encounter

“Painting is writing with light, said Salva. You must first learn its alphabet, then its grammar. Only then will you be able to master style and magic.” – Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

Despite a climactic career of fifty years, Christian Bergeron remains the best kept secret of Québec’s young history of art. This in spite of the fact that his paintings are selling like hot cakes, here and elsewhere. Indeed, prestigious galleries in the United States, in Europe and largely in Canada, are displaying his undeniable powerfully expressive and attractive works.

A reserved man, of great stature, with piercing eyes, and extremely sensitive, from the outset he states that this will be the third journalistic interview of his fifty years career. Yet the man is rather talkative and knowledgeable about art. I am rather spellbound. His comments on the topicality of art are ringing in my ears as a symphony attuned with knowledge, experience and success.

Text by Michel Bois

Christian Bergeron is represented by :

Galerie Porte Rouge : 61, Saint Jean Baptiste Street, Baie-Saint-Paul, QC – 418 760-8830 galerieporterouge@gmail.con

Galeries Cimon : 77, Du Sault-Au-Matelot Street, Québec, QC – 418 694-7959 / 35, de Buade Street, Québec, QC – 418 694-7999 info@galeriecimon.com

421 Gallery : 560 Raymer Avenue, Kelowna, BC – 250 448-8888 info@gallery421.ca

Caine Harris

As Profoundly Authentic as Possible

New Figuration

“My brush-strokes start in nothing and they end in nothing, and in- between you find the image.” – Karel Appel

The works of Caine Harris displayed at Galerie Québec Art constitute an unexpected and formidable gift of creation in the city of Québec. There is absolutely no commonplace with the clichéd works over-exhibited in surrounding galleries. Whether taking into account the taste of art collectors or of passing tourists, a gallery should also dare to show unusual pieces of incomparable quality. Far from decorative or insipid eye-catching illustrations, Caine Harris’ works are extremely expressive. The proud New Brunswicker is a self-thought and brilliant artist.

21 x 17 in

Text by Michel Bois

Caine Harris is représente by Galerie Québec Art 27 and 40, Notre-Dame Street, Québec. QC 418-692-8200 

Lucie Michel

Artist Profile 

“A landscape is the backdrop to human life.” – Bernardin de Saint-Pierre

The prestigious imprint of Lucie Michel’s body of work undoubtedly resides in her landscapes. She is able to create a unique universe from skillful alchemies. Her painting straddles the random limits of matter in fusion, hence, this shimmering effect on the spectator’s retina. It also lies in this novel way of viewing nature and its landscapes, prime sources of inspiration for the artist.

Text by Michel Bois

luciemic123@hotmail.com

514 889-8191

www.Luciemichel.ca

Sylvia Audet

The Art of Connecting with Nature

On Exhibit

Painting for the sheer pleasure of it

Artists that can boast of having evolved by following a multifaceted pathway while remaining true to their preferred creative field, are few and far between. Having obtained her postgraduate university degree, Sylvia Audet also taught visual arts while taking part in a myriad of solo and collective art exhibitions. Well-known and recognized by her peers, this artist-painter, residing in the MRC Arthabaska region in Centre-du-Québec, is highly inspired by nature.

“I have always been influenced by the natural environment, and water, in all its forms whether fog, ice, snow or clouds, pervades my paintings. Nature at its purest readily welcomes light, details and contrasts the subtleties of which I never hesitate to explore. The seasons, Mother Nature’s whims and the changing intensities of light always surprise me,” she explains.

Text by Maxime Rioux

Sylvia Audet’s works are on permanent exhibit at Taillon-Carpe-Diem gallery in Magog.

Her forthcoming exhibition, entitled L’eau, une mine d’art, will be held in the exhibition area of the Lac-Mégantic Sport Centre, from July 8^th (Vernissage July 11^th) to September 8^th 2019.

To view the artist’s paintings and learn more about her artistic process, visit her personal website at www.sylviaaudet-artistepeintre.com

Suzanne Maillé

Glass Artist

Thumbnail Sketches

With Suzanne Maillé, it’s quite natural to begin a conversation talking about birds. In fact, our interview takes place prior to her delivering one of her lectures on the subject of Ducks in Saint-Jovite, before the members of the Upper Laurentians Ornithology Club. Her passion for birds started in 1976 and she is today able to recognize more than 150 species simply by listening to their song. So, before we start discussing her art, we converse about Pileated Woodpeckers, Sparrows, Barred Owls and other feathered forest dwellers.

Infants, Baltimore Oriole, 135 pieces, 18 x 28 in, 1988

Text by Robert Lafontaine

The Viatour-Berthiaume duo

Sculpting Words: An Easy Task

Forms, Volume and Space

Artisan sculptors Viatour-Berthiaume impart a new dimension to sculpture. Indeed, Marie-Annick Viatour and Gaétan Berthiaume’s sculptures must not be looked upon simply as objects, but also be viewed in terms of the space they occupy with their movement and of the narrative the duo introduces into their works. Their sculptures are not merely seeking to please, they bear profound meaning. The duo ensures that social interaction is an integral part of their production and of the spectator’s visual experience. Combining beauty, ingenuity and playfulness, the duo’s sculptures tell stories that are at times funny, at times poetic and at other times quite dramatic.

At the end of the 1920s, when American sculptor Alexander Calder created his small circus, he was greatly influenced by the volumes of that universe. His work bears witness to an artistic thinking based on the tension that exists between balance and imbalance. In the same vein as Calder, by finding ways of imparting movement to their sculptures, Viatour-Berthiaume developed a unique artistic approach that incorporates movement to the sculpting gesture. Early in their creations, the two sculptors, Visual Arts graduates from Concordia University, adopted a practice anchored in the tradition of expressive arts and crafts by endorsing ancestral know-how. Simultaneously, the duo articulates the space, the mechanics and the movement of the work and emphasizes with high accuracy the plasticity of the object through a redefined sculptural approach.

Les jumeaux Mosquito, wood, acrylic, metal, 18 x 46 x 14 cm, 2006

Text by Marie-France Bégis

photo © Gaétan Berthiaume

To learn more about Viatour-Berthiaume’s exhibition venues: www.viatourberthiaume.com/

ARO

Caroline Bergeron

Portrait of a gallery

Thriving on life’s energy

We are talking here about a studio gallery located in Stoneham, north of Québec. A unique creative centre for a sole prolific artist whose daily labour is evidenced by the presence of pots of acrylic, paintbrushes, painting knives and canvases, as well as various ongoing experimentations, impastos and further investigations into alternative mediums. This adjoining a magnificent gallery area displaying a vibrant collection of completed works. In short, an overall conducive environment for exciting rendezvous with astute collectors.

ARO

ARO is the acronym Caroline Bergeron uses to sign her paintings. A genuine driving force, a bundle of energy in the field of business as well as in art; let’s just say the apple did not fall far from the tree. The painter is in fact the daughter of a ceramist mother who had a storefront boutique in Québec’s Petit-Champlain district and of a father who was a prosperous restaurateur with establishments near the Château Frontenac. Thus predestined, at thirteen years old Caroline starts working in restauration during the summer season and in her mother’s boutique during the winter. At nineteen, she begins a career as representative in the food sector for the Campbell Soup Company. Being competent and knowledgeable, she rapidly rises through the ranks and soon advances to the prestigious position of Business Development Director for Québec. All the while, she pursues her studies in marketing and management at Montréal’s HEC (Higher Commercial Studies).

Origine, 30 x 30 in

Text by Michel Bois

www.aroartiste.com

Galerie d’art : 2682, boul. Talbot, Stoneham, Québec

By appointment: 418 657-0120

aroartiste@gmail.com

À marée basse

A Tale of Three Girls and a Coastline

Magdalen Islands

À marée basse is primarily an art gallery, a unique cultural immersion experience, three artists impassioned with natural history and knowledge of the maritime and insular territory of the Magdalen Islands and united through their creativity. À marée basse is an innovative business concept which favours marketing derived products from the artists’ creations to reach a wider audience and increase their dissemination. À marée basse is the coming together of a painter, a photographer and an illustrator.

Text by Marie-France Bégis

To know more about the 2019 events and overall program: www.amareebasse.com/

Raynald Leclerc

A Bird’s-eye View

Great Encounter

“My advice is to not always paint a subject from nature. Art is an abstraction; distance it from nature through your reverie and rather imagine the resulting creation.” – Gauguin

Raynald Leclerc was born in 1961 in Saint-Michel-de-Bellechasse, a hamlet located on the River flats. The passage of foreign bound ships and the rhythm of tides remain the scenic reference for his personal propensity to always take a step further and look ahead in his creation as in life.

The painter has been applying this principle through all aspects of his inventive universe for some thirty-seven years. And even more, perhaps, for this series of twenty-five paintings gathered under the title “À vol d’oiseau” A Bird’s-eye View.

La haute-ville, 30 x 36 in

Text by Michel Bois

From May 4 to May 11, 2019

Vernissage Saturday May 4 at 12 pm

À la Galerie Internationale, 87, rue Saint-Pierre, Québec 418 692-1152

artinter@medium.qc.ca

www.artinternationale.com

Nancy Galianos

High Spirits and Vivid Emotions

Contemporary Realism

Every morning, Nancy Galianos starts her day by going up to her vast studio atop her home, never knowing what awaits her. Nothing is planned. The first thing she needs to do is start searching for a subject that will be willing to take shape in her eyes on that day.

The energy generated by the music she almost ritually turns-on in the room first leads her to reflect and reminisce, as it brings forth various emotional memories. At the whim of the happy or sad feelings she experiences, Nancy Galianos grabs a brush, a roller or a spatula and embarks on a new venture the issue of which remains uncertain almost until the very end. Whether there be rain, snow, intense sunshine, heath or cold, her total environment influences and guides her creative gestures.

Summer joy, acrylic, 18 x 14 in

Text by Lisanne Le Tellier

Roger Ricard

Writing in Colours

Painting a Country

Sunshine fills painter Roger Ricard’s studio. The double doors, with glass panes painted by the artist, open to a coloured explosion of paintings upon paintings with vibrant scenes as heart-warming as a tight embrace in the heart of winter.

With either his landscapes or his fanciful interiors, Roger Ricard invites us into a dreamlike universe filled with fantasy, joy and humour. An experienced painter who is celebrating his 50th year of career, his artistic signature features vivid colours, fluid movements, rhythm of lines and a balanced composition in shapes as much as in tonalities. He is an instinctive artist who interprets his subjects and exaggerates the aspects he loves. “What I paint is not real, it comes from my imagination,” says the artist, which is part of the reason why admiring his works procures such a great feeling.

Couleurs d’automne à mon atelier, oil on canvas, 40 x 40 in

Text by Isabelle Gauthier

Represented by :

Galerie Céleste, Saint-Sauveur

Lumière au pinceau, Shawinigan

Pousette Gallery, Vancouver

Sophie Lévesque

In Search of Lost Time

Delight in Discovery

“Our souvenirs fade with the passage of time, but what is memory if not an act of the imagination!” – Lindsay Clarke

A warm and cozy atmosphere. Soft lights deliciously dimmed. Victorian furniture a bit dated in appearance. We are in painter Sophie Lévesque’s secret garden, where flourish souvenirs, sentiments and intimate visions to be shared. A place where time is dissected into an array of visual parcels. Here a bull’s-eye window, there a wobbly chair or table.

Sophie Lévesque juggles with the notions of space and the passing of time, as others do with shapes. In brief, she knows how to reconstruct a universe around objects with a particular and fascinating viewpoint.

Une journée dorée, oil on masonite, 24 x 36 in

Text by Michel Bois

Sophie Lévesque is represented by Galerie Québec Art, 40, rue Notre-Dame, Québec 418-692-8200

www.galeriequebecart.com