EXHIBITIONS
2023, Group show Eskff presents : A parade through the years , Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, New Jersey, Usa
2023, Solo Show, Galerie L’Original , Montréal, Canada
2023, Solo Show , IMUR , Jersey City, New Jersey, Usa
2022, group exhibition, Galerie L’original, Montréal, Canada
2022, group exhibition, Galerie Youn, Montréal, Canada
2021, Juried group exhibition, Mtlenarts, Montréal, Canada
2020, Juried group exhibition, Mtlenarts, Montréal, Canada
2019, Group exhibition, ArtJam at NomadLife, Montreal, Canada
2019, Group exhibition, MTL Uncovered, Theatre Paradox, Montreal, Canada
2018, Juried exposition, Art and Soul exhibition, Whistler, Canada
2017, Group exhibition, Fonzie, Montreal, Canada
STUDIES
2008-2011, Cégep de Sherbrooke, 3 year College Degree in Graphic Design
2016-2017, École des métiers d’art de Montreal, 1 year introduction to woodworking and design
GRANTS AND AWARDS
2023 : Canada arts council grant recipient
2023: Eskff Resident at Mana Contemporary
ARTIST STATEMENT & BACKGROUND
I believe the need to create is an innate part of humanity, that fundamentally we are all creative on some level. Some of us just have a more intense need to put things out into the physical world and manifest our creativity. Making something out of nothing by transforming raw materials naturally captivates me. Even as a child I spent hours drawing, painting, and building things with sticks, pieces of wood or recycled materials. My life has taken a few detours since that time, but now it seems I’ve come full circle.
I aim to explore portraiture in non conventional ways, to blur the borders between painting and sculpture by incorporating different mediums, materials, and techniques acquired from various sources throughout the years of my creative development. I want to create in a way that inspires others to step outside of traditional techniques, to create freely, to break painting out of the frame.
My portraits pay tribute to the human gaze, a glimpse of the beauty and strength within. I find a strong look or a piercing gaze captivating to observe and to paint. There's nothing in the universe quite like the power of a look when you lock eyes with another human being, and feel connection, confrontation, or desire. There's an unexplainable exchange of information and energy through the eyes in that moment. Although it may be impossible to fully capture the soul, I strive to imbue as much emotion and life into my work as possible.
I draw inspiration from both my small town origins and my current urban reality. Both worlds are reflected in my art, my style, and choice of materials. My little hometown of a few hundred people is a charming place, but It was shut off from the world in many ways, so when I moved to a thriving city the universe opened up for me, and I discovered a world so much more rich, diverse, and artistic than I had ever known. Surrounded by all styles, genders, languages, races, and religions, it felt like everyone fit in, that everyone was a part of the beautiful mosaic that is humanity. This diversity was comforting and inspiring and heavily influenced my art.
At the same time, I draw inspiration from the manual labor, carpentry, and woodworking that surrounded me while growing up in a rural area. It has infused my art just as much as the museums, design, and fine art I’ve experienced in the city. I truly found my voice and style as an artist when I merged both these worlds and developed my own unique approach to art that is my “sculptural paintings.” Fusing my passions and inspirations allowed me to create in a way that feels true to myself, because it utilizes all the skills and different aspects of my creativity and my life. The whole process of my art, the cutting and layering of this rigid and raw material and the transformation it undergoes to become an object with more color, suppleness, and delicacy is in a way a reflection of my own evolution. I fell in love with this material because of its imperfections: it is rough around the edges but willing to be transformed, and I see myself in it and the art that results from its use.
My painting doesn’t follow any rules or established techniques; I paint in my own way, one that evolved organically through years of experimentation. I went back and forth from brushes on canvas, to pallet knives on wood, to brushes on wood. I maintained some of the looser strokes I had developed using pallet knives, but added more transparency and shading as I moved on to brushes. At first the plywood sheets were just rectangular pieces that acted a base, but as I experimented with wood and its willingness to be transformed, the wood increasingly became a central element of the medium, and the pieces evolved to become more intricate and sculptural. My current style and materials come together to create a balance between raw and refined, rough and intricate. Somehow it's both fine art and woodworking. I enjoy playing with the exposed wood and paint strokes in such a way that you lose sight of where paint ends and wood begins, leaving the raw materials intertwined with the paint in a subtle dance between finished and unfinished, a calibration that took years to get right and that is key to my aesthetic.
