Richard Mill‘s Recent Paintings now on exhibition at Galerie Trois Points fuse sculpture and minimalist painting, contrasting the flat surface of his canvases with the geometric, three-dimensional aspects of the found objects he includes in his Å“uvre.

Architectural elements dot the exhibition space, such a a slender wooden arch spanning the ends of a canvas, or a series of turned banister columns mottled with successive coats of paint stretching away from a painting.

The large-format paintings are vast lakes of a singe colour, sometime spilling beyond the edge of the stretcher, sometimes pushing against an adjacent colour in gentle, lapping waves. If you look closely, you’ll notice that the curves and dips of these waves resemble female figures, their silhouettes reaching out of the dark expanse. They also dialogue with the curves and angles of the slender columns in the room, alluding to figuration while remaining strictly abstract. A fringe of drips at the bottom of the canvases reference the process of painting and the medium itself.

Enhancing the graphic flatness of the painted works is the addition of stenciled text, providing cryptic clues to a mythological narrative.

If the works look somehow familiar, you are not mistaken. Mill is a veteran of the Quebec arts scene, in fact, he was in the first graduating class of the École des arts visuels of the Université Laval. He has worked as an artist for over 40 years, active in abstraction and minimalism. His most recent series of artworks is a reference to his 1970s series of black paintings.

Galerie Trois Points, space 520
Richard Mill
Peintures récentes / Recent Paintings
April 28 – May 18, 2012
www.galerietroispoints.qc.ca