Photo : Hélène Cyr
Curiosity and exploration define my work. I'm looking for what looks like me now, sampling the web and the human trace.
My paintings, collages, drawings or objects are designed by associations of keywords that dominate conversations and social networks - environment, forest, gluten, life, network, opinion, recognition, exploitation, publication, climate, like, plastic, etc. I sample by analogy, theme, word, character, scene. These are put together in a certain sequence and, from fragmented vision, become new narration.
I juggle several sources. I work my models digitally. I function like a VJ who assembles, confronts, draws, borrows and recreates a personal version and powerfully anchored in my time.
Novo Romantism Project
The nude in nature, which became popular again at the end of the 18th century, was exploited by the painters of the workshops and academies of the time (including Eugène Delacroix and François Boucher) to express noble feelings and an ideal of beauty. Their characters, from religious pantheons or mythological heroes, being by their origin above the simple mortal, could be represented naked and became an opportunity to study the human body. The first decade of the 19th century (the French Revolution inseparable from the birth of romanticism in France) was a period of profound change, exaltation of feelings, rebellion against the rules of art and of life in general. At the end of this century, the relaxation of conventions in representation and modernity being felt, painters favored a more realistic approach, closer to everyday situations (including Édouard Manet with Olympia).
I regularly attended live model sessions before the pandemic. Frustrated that everything was canceled and in order to be able to continue my study of the human body, I turned to this period of art history mentioned above. To study and reproduce a character from a work of this period (Romanticism) is to exalt the feelings and fantasy of this century. I therefore offer you a reinterpretation of this heritage integrated into contemporary scenes. I create universes where nudity and the swoon of a couple under an urban viaduct, young fauns, skilful drapes and a bouquet of balloons coexist. I have structured my paintings without providing precise indications, which gives everyone the possibility, from their own vision, to live an experience that will take them to the frontiers of our time and the romantic idea of a new life.
Nature reshaped Project
The impact on nature of our North American lifestyle is unprecedented. This nature transformed by human designs is no longer a vision shared by the generations that follow one another, but a fragmented vision of which several parts are no more than a memory. As for a puzzle with missing pieces, I browsed the new archives (Google earth, Google street view) to bring out the parts of landscapes that have disappeared in this process of domination of nature.