A Giant Madly in Love with the Kingdom of Saguenay
Great Encounter
“Several aspects of a painting are worthy of interest. The subject, the theme, must always be rendered in a simple, coherent fashion, but still impress the beholder. The viewer must be led – by avoiding unnecessary details – to follow the path the painter intended and behold the sensation which possessed the artist.” – Alfred Sysley.
A freedom-loving farmer’s son, René Gagnon wanted to be a “coureur des bois”. The hazards of life and an irresistible calling towards artistic creation determined otherwise. Definitely for the best! Indeed, some of the greatest visual artists of the time passed on to him their tremendous and tumultuous passion for art. Artists such as René Richard, Cosgrove, Ayotte, Albert Rousseau, Marc-Aurèle Fortin, and many others.
Au pays d’un royaume (Saguenay), oil on Masonite, 40 x 48 in, 2008
This simply due to the fact that he was the nephew of René Bergeron, an important artists’ manager, who invited his protégés to come and paint on his land in the Saguenay. Thus, self-taught painter René Gagnon was privy to the best lessons in art and life itself through the words of these passionate, freedom loving, masters. In interview, the artist warmly reminisces about these moments, late in the day, when everyone appraised the work of others, often providing constructive criticism. But always delightfully appreciative of how a colleague was able to capture the beauty of the landscape and the fugacious lights of the moment.
Féerie d’automne, oil on Masonite, 40 x 48 in, 2016
Text by Michel Bois
66, chemin de la Pointe à Gagnon, Anse de roche, Sacré-Cœur, QC
Musée René Gagnon, 203, rue Notre-Dame Ouest, Montréal, QC
Header image: Féerie d’automne, oil on Masonite, 40 x 48 in, 2016
Hiver 2020
]]>Confluence of Mineral and Vegetal Elements
Abstraction in Art
“Matter is the unconscious of form.” – Gaston Bachelard
The artist is delighted. Never before have her works been so well received by the public. Her agenda is filled with dates of forthcoming events and exhibitions.
Sylvie Grondin began her visual arts career in the field of printmaking at Engramme in Québec City. She has ever since been exploring the infinite possibilities of paper and colours. Hence, the inclusion of the precious and revealing material in her mixed techniques paintings.
Petits papiers (30), 20 x 20 in
Text by Michel Bois
Sylvie Grondin is represented by:
Galerie Off, 113, Rue Saint-Paul, Québec, QC 418 569-3316
Galerie Le Luxart, 66, Rue Saint-Paul Ouest, Montréal, QC 514 848-8944
Header image: Les petits papiers (42), 16 x 16 in
Hiver 2020
]]>The Eyes of the Heart
Contemporary Realism
“It is the selection of details, and not their number, that ensures a portrait’s likeness.” – Alexis Carrel
The initial contact is cordial, thus promising. The man is baldheaded and wears an earring on his left earlobe. His steel blue eyes express confidence while imparting a dreamlike stance. Denis Jacques (IAF) is forthcoming and loquacious.
His words flow like a river: “Natives of the Mauricie region either head for Québec City or for Montréal. I first went to the big city, but I adored Québec. There is no comparison. I was drawing a lot and had heard that the city hosted a lot of portraitists. When I saw Sainte-Anne Street, with its mighty trees and friendly artists, it was an easy choice. I first settled-in to draw portraits during the summer of 1980 and remained until 2004,” explains the artist.
Mathilde au pourpoint, oil on wood mounted on cotton, 20 x 16 in, 2015
Text by Michel Bois
Denis Jacques is represented by:
Galerie Archambault, 1303 Notre-Dame, Lavaltrie QC 450 586-2202
Galerie Le Pépin d’Art, 204 Sainte-Rose Blvd, Laval, QC 514 965-9637
Académie Internationale des Beaux-Arts du Québec.
He is also the founder of the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Québec, where he dispenses courses to a large public: 755 Charest Blvd. East, Québec, QC 581 989-1337 – [email protected] – [email protected]
denisjacques.ca – [email protected]
Header image: Cronos – Autoportrait, clay oil
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]]>Encounter with a Passionate Artist
Artist Profil
“A painting and its painter part ways when they no longer need one another. When the painting can no longer nourish the painter, when the painter can no longer nourish his painting.” – Christian Bobin
A master painter once said: “If you start working on a painting and already see it completed in your mind, abandon the project and start another; your painting is already done,” relates the artist to his students. He adds: “A painting comes to life as it is being created.”
For two years now, Guy Brassard has had the opportunity of teaching drawing and oil painting to diverse groups of students. He urges them to step out of their comfort zone, to forego the safety of photographs and let themselves be guided by their instinct, by what radiates from within. An intuitive painter, he teaches them how to observe and interpret, to trust themselves, to loosen-up. “An artist must remain open to the unexpected, welcome surprises and accidents,” says the teacher. “The canvas will speak to you!” A conversation occurs between the painter and his painting. During the process of creation, it invites him to apply such a colour, to draw a particular shape. Once a work is completed, a painter might say, for example, that this barn’s blue roof simply could not have been painted in another colour; this shade of blue naturally imposed itself to him along the process.
Champs de rêve, oil applied with spatula on canvas, 27 x 57 in
Text by Anny Brassard
Header image: Les blés sont mûrs, oil applied with spatula on canvas, 24 x 36 in
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]]>A Multidimensional Complexity
Actual Art
For many years, Marie-Claire Plante has painted in the evening, at night and during the weekends in order to live-out her passion and address her profound need to express herself, as she pursued a career in a field totally unrelated to art. Despite full-time employment, she nevertheless managed to spend upwards of 30 hours a week at developing her talent.
Her retirement in 2013 allows her to finally devote herself wholeheartedly to her painting, resulting in an unprecedented increase of her artistic output. Her inquisitive nature had previously lead her to experience a variety of mediums as she endeavoured, in research mode from year to year, to discover new avenues the combination of which will later constitute her pictorial uniqueness. The various paths she explores over the years intertwine and orient her style which becomes resolutely abstract. “Becoming an artist was always my wish. In the beginning, I did not yet allow myself to paint without figurative benchmarks, although the desire to stray was already there and is now fulfilled in my present works. Figures have long been part of my creative process, although they more often than not already bore the manifestation of this latent intention to one day burst the boundaries,” she says.
Passage obligé, mixed techniques, 36 x 48 in
Text by Lisanne Le Tellier
Marie-Claire Plante’s paintings are exclusively accessible from her personal website: marieclaireplante.com, and her Facebook page.
Header image: Au-delà, mixed techniques, 40 x 54 in
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]]>An Artist to Discover
Thumbnail Sketches
A new young abstract painter has recently joined Québec’s visual arts community: MEG. Born in 2007 in Québec City, Mégane Fortin started painting at the age of seven under the auspices of her teacher, artist Maurice Louis. Talented and quite determined, she is encouraged to pursue her emerging artistic practice.
She first exhibits her works in Stoneham-et-Tewkesbury, a Québec City suburb, at the age of nine, in duo with her teacher. The exhibition garners great success and the rising young artist gains public renown. Art lovers in attendance are impressed with her talent and most of the exhibited works are sold, many of them notably being purchased by European collectors.
Abstrait 4
Text by Marie-France Bégis
From April 23 to 26, 2020: Artexpo “Solo” New York PIER 94, 711 12th Ave, New York (NY)
From December 1st 2019 to May 31st 2020: “Vibration” Themed exhibition at the Musée d’art contemporain VR 3D, 54400 Longwy (France)
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]]>Emergence of Alternating Images
Great Encounter
“To see the world differently, one must start by thinking differently.” – Anton Gill
Without a doubt, Tania Lebedeff works in perfect synchronicity from both her left and right hemispheres, manifest by the evolution of her work as an overall and total macrocosm. A universe where the human silhouette mutates, is not limited to one viewing angle or one approach, where other figures tengentially stem from the depth of the canvas. A universe that goes beyond matter to better permeate the psyche.
Nuit de pleine lune, 48 x 48 in – photo © Guy l’Heureux
Are we faced with surreal systems and doctrines? Maybe. But, it rather seems to me that the painter’s intrinsic ambition is aimed at piercing the secrets of the soul through her passion for creation. Indeed, Tania Lebedeff is able to depict poetry, movement and marvelous visual discoveries, in such a way as to nourish the spectator’s own perception. We are thus given to understand that these works of art find their meaning and specificity being imbued with dominant awareness of the relationship between content and form. The content being the most distant plane of the image that attempts to break to the surface in a hesitation waltz that transcends the form. Surreptitiously the soul becomes visible and overshadows the incarnate being.
Les errants, 36 x 48 in – photo © Guy l’Heureux
Text by Michel Bois
To reach Tania Lebedeff :
À l’atelier : 1087, Laurier Blvd, Mont-Saint-Hilaire (Québec) Canada J3G 4S6 514 834-6543
In Montreal : Galerie Richelieu, 7903, Saint-Denis street, Montreal (Québec) Canada H2R 2G2 514-381-2247
Header image : Globe-trotters diptyque 2 fois, 48 x 36 in (detail) – photo © Guy l’Heureux
]]>The contradictory universe of ceramist Laurent Craste
Actual Expression
Ceramist Laurent Craste’s creations plunge us into a unique antithetical universe where the glorification of beauty and the bruising of destruction are literally and figuratively confronted. Voluntarily and specifically, the artist pushes the contradiction between two proposals of opposite meanings; between two general ideas derived from reality. On one part, there is the beauty of porcelain featured at its peak decorative and flamboyant qualities with its classic references, and on the other, the reference to historical and contemporary events marked by major breakages or dramatic societal episodes.
[…] “I use historical archetypes as a material in itself, in an approach that explores the meaning of decorative collectibles.” – Laurent Craste.
Laurent Craste and his work Iconocraste – photo © Laurent Craste
Text by Marie-France Bégis
To view Laurent Craste’s works:
– Solo exhibition at Galerie YL-S Art contemporain, Saint-Gabriel de Brandon. Vernissage: September 21, 2019.
– Art Toronto contemporary art fair. Galerie 3. From October 25 to 27, 2019.
– Solo exhibition at Galerie 3, Québec. From November 22 to December 22, 2019.
– Group exhibition as part of the eXcentrer series at Galerie d’art Desjardins in Drummondville. From November 8 to December 15, 2019.
Header image : Petite immolation II, porcelain, smoking and encaustic, 15,3 x 33,2 x 20 cm, 2012 – photo © David Bishop Noriega
]]>The Splendor of Nature
Contemporary Realism
“Art is the reflection of the human soul dazzled by the splendor of beauty.” – Victor Hugo
If many artists are particularly voluble about their work, others on the contrary remain rather uncommunicative. For his part, Eduard Gurevich is the incarnation of discretion. I am reminded of a fabulous painter, the late Jacques Hurtubise (1939-2014), one of Québec’s leading art figure, who, faced with journalists questioning him about the meaning of his flamboyant painting style, angrily answered: “I painted!”
As if the rest was not of his concern. In short, he maintained that a piece of art should be judged on its own merits, without being subject to convoluted theories and muddy discourses. The sentiment becomes crystal clear upon viewing Gurevich’s paintings. The images are strikingly communicative. There is no need for further discourse or skillful shenanigans. The spectator takes note and is instantly moved, in accordance with his personal life’s journey.
April’s Adventure, acrylic on canvas, 30 x 30 in
Texte de Michel Bois
Eduard Gurevich is represented by Galerie Québec Art, 27 and 40, Notre-Dame street, Québec, Qc, Canada – 418 692-8200
Header image : Sun’s Birth Place, acrylic on canvas, 38 x 57 in
]]>Odette Théberge
Artist Profile
Odette Théberge’s series of works entitled Mementos, Chroniques and Résonances, les murs se racontent are simultaneously embedded with vivid creative energy and a clear willingness to highlight the passage of time. The book-sculptures that initiated the Mementos series stem from a fortuitous discovery that led the artist to reflect on the relevance of books, the material place they hold in our lives and the gradual abandon they are subjected to.
A vivid corpus, of huge significance. Inspired by an event where a group of friends were invited to throw objects or papers in a campfire, meant to signify the end of a chapter in each of their lives, Odette Théberge found the remains of books among the cinders the next morning.
Memento 26, burned books, acrylic, gold leaf, leather and steel (belt), 17 x 17 x 20 cm
Texte de Marie-France Bégis
Exposition Résonances, les murs se racontent, Odette Théberge, Centre d’art Louise-Carrier du 8 septembre au 2 octobre 2019.