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Mural produced in the fall of 2021 following a call for projects as part of Tourisme Montréal’s centennial and produced by Mu. The mural is designed as a trompe l’oeil from which emerge dynamic and evocative shapes, amongst which recognizable icons of the city appear as icons. Façades : Fenêtres sur ma ville required more than 2000 hours of work, 25 different maquettes, 600 liters of paint for an area of 16,000 square feet.

Certainly one of my great painting adventures, Façades : Fenêtres sur ma ville was a challenge of endurance and concentration. Supported by a team of experienced corsairs, tossed about by the wind, exposed to the cold chill of November, we brought the ship back to port and earned our stripes as a team… even the sailor Michel de la Chenelière carried the brush high for the cause. 

Photos Olivier Bousquet

From March 27th to April 18th, 2021 @ Galerie Michel Guimont

The Empire painting series comes from a desire to question the role of power and money in culture, and its impact on people’s lives, on the work of artists. It seems obvious that recent art history can be interpreted as the result of great empires justifying their importance through culture. The artist here explores the historical relationship between art and power, he creates paintings that offer more than a vehicle for the dominant values ​​and which, in the end, speak of freedom.

The figurative paintings being an exploration of his own relationship to art and culture, the artist creates a series of paintings that evoke the notion of Empire, with its effects on populations, but also on art history and current cultural creation. Working in a realistic style from photographic sources, he confronts the realities evoked in the paintings by juxtaposing them, by making them strange, by constructing a poetic arrangement. The subjects are varied, inspired by images taken in spectacular settings that highlight the relationship between art and money (a fashion show or a performance in a large hall). Continue reading →

From January 18th to February 15th, 2020,
@ Usine C, Montréal

The Empire project comes from a desire to address the issues of money and power in world culture as well as local culture and how it impacts the way artists work. It is an obvious fact for me that recent art history can be interpreted as the result of large empires justifying their imporance through culture. I plan to explore the different elements that constitute painting history’s relation to money and power.

My figurative paintings are an exploration of my personal relation to art and culture, and I want to create a series of paintings that allude to the notion of Empire, with its effects on populations but also on art-history and present art-making. 

No specific empire in history is targeted by this project, it is inspired by the book Empire (2000) by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt. The book argues that ther has been a historic paradigm shift between “modern” imperialism based on nation-states and an emerging post-modernism created by the ruling classes and basing its authority on military force and on international legal creations (UN, NATO, IMF, etc.). Inspired by the writings of Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault, the authors theorize an Empire thought of as an agencement, an “arrangement”, a totalizing mechanism against which the only possible resistance is negation.

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