In its large main rooms Galerie B-312 presents two massive paintings by artist Fançois Simard in an installation titled Dans la gadoue jusqu’aux essieux.

The larger one of the two canvases spans an impressive 7 feet by 30 feet. It is essentially abstract, but distinctly evokes a familiar motif: the landscape. Despite the garish neon colours and the vivid primaries, the use of a horizon line and the stylized “roads” say “landscape”, even though everything else on the canvas pulls away from this interpretation. Unrelated amorphous shapes are spread across the picture plane, created in an array of mark making techniques – dripping, spraying, splattering, fast, swirly brush-marks. And yet, what the artist tells us is that we are accustomed to “see” a landscape even though it isn’t really there.
The second canvas is slightly smaller and uses the same colour palette and painting techniques. But here Simard plays on the idea of modernist painting, again suggesting modernism without actually painting according to the modernist style. Both paintings are meant to dialogue with each other, and there is an interesting tension between the two canvases.

Galerie B-312
space 403
François Simard
Dans la gadoue jusqu’aux essieux
exhibition period: April 11 – May 10, 2008
www.galerieb-312.qc.ca