A piece of art is like wine, you like it or you don’t, regardless of the year of make or signature ; passion does not need a label.

Opening :Wednesday April 18th, 2012

Artist’s statement :

The works contained in this catalogue have been produced over the last two years but represent a culmination of all that has gone before. This process has been accelerated by a recent return visit to Australia and New Zealand. Apart from the diverse beauty of the countries themselves, it also involved the rediscovery of their magnificent collections of ethnic art and the art of the Pacific region generally.
Far from denying the range of “subjects” contained herein, the diversity of them is wholly intended. What’s common to them all is that they are fashioned by the same style together with a lifelong passion for colour and colour relationships. I listen to music as I paint; I love the musical space as it breathes and floats. At times the equivalent can be rather like painting on the sky or painting on water, keeping company with Sibelius and Ligeti or inspired by the sublime music of Schubert. I find places of pilgrimage and worship very powerful, no matter what the reason for their existence. Equally, Momento Mori has always fascinated painters. There are also references to churchyards: memorials where eventually the living tribute of flowers will die as well.Azrael – we will all meet her sooner or later. Of course death can be, and is, celebrated in the wonderful Festival of the Dead in Oaxaca, Mexico. A childhood passion for the work of Francisco Goya and a parallel fascination and horror with the Spanish inquisition has never left me. The plight of the victims reverberates throughout history, never more so than now. Things that are also celebrated simplybecause they are what they are: prayer rugs and prayer flags; the great Pacific Ocean; fabulous tribal art; island landscapes; scorched earth (the seeming prerogative of a retreating army); and the Cerberus-like guardian figures from the those wonderful Greek legends.

Critics :

The current series of works by one of the UK’s leading colourists represents a new level of achievement for the artist. The success of these works lies in the cohesion achieved despite the artist’s wide range of interests and preoccupations. Subjects range from shrines and prayer flags to medieval illuminations, ethnic art to music and on to much darker, more equivocal images. The result is a display of variety, spontaneity and shifting light. Yet it’s overwhelmingly about one thing: colour. The progress of his work reads like a spiritual travelogue.

-Eric Buesner, writer and critic

He was born on 3th december 1969 in Triest ( Italy) , where at now lives and works. He was educated in this city and pursued scientific studies. He then specialized in finances and for various years ran a small business.. He has always loved photography and he has studied it as an autodidact with help and suggestions of a friend, a professional photographer.His interest for art, both ancient and contemporary, cultivated and deepened with the support and friendship of various artists. The artist uses photography and computer graphic to create abstract and conceptual photographic research. He creates these digital works using an uncommon graphic application software such as Excel ® by Microsoft®, the spreadsheet data processing application. His aim is to obtain through digital graphics a pictorial (even through digital) painting using a basic drawing tool and a mouse ,hence the term mouse-painting. His works exhibited in a lot of collective, solo exhibition and art fairs in Italy and in other nations. In December 2009 he had a solo exhibition in Montreal in Canada In spring 2010 he was Winner and selected in several Awards ( Art international Biennale of Asolo 2010 , Black & White Magazine Ca – USA, Wannabee Gallery Prize -Milan ).

Exposition : March 6th to March 27th, 2012

Masoud Abedi
Masoud Abedi is a full-time contemporary painter from Iran. Math and geometry play an important role in his work to create harmony.
“My acrylic paintings on canvas are snapshots of public and private life and cultural manifestations”

Mario DiPolo
Mario DiPolo is a Venezuelan artist, who now lives in Montreal. he has a long standing history in the art of three-dimensional representations made ​​on wooden frames. Using acrylics and objects, these frames create windows into the memory of daily lives that we all share in our various realities.

Sophie Pineault
Born in Notre-Dame-de-L’île-Perrot, Sophie Pineault shows an early attraction to creation. In 1995, she opted for ceramics and studied at the Center for Ceramic Bonsecours in Old Montreal. She is involved in a little bit of everything, watercolor, sculpture, and now focuses entirely on acrylics since 2009.
“I draw mainly from my previous experiences with the land, creating volume and texture in my paintings. The bright metallic colors and luminosities similar to the technique raku glazes. Nature remains for me the focus of my work, close contact between man and life.”

Jean-Michel Pouzet
French artist photographer (Nantes), he practices contemporary photography, often described as minimalist, colorful and narrative. This original artistic representation, in contrast to traditional photography, explores an abstraction without provocation. It is colorful, smiling symbolism of morality, social and sensuality.

Pilar Segura
Pilar Segura was born in Barcelona where he studied drawing, painting and polychrome at the School of Art and Llotja and other studies in Paris and Holland. He is a member of the Artistic Circle of Sant Lluc and president of The Association for the Promotion of Fine Arts Art of Catalonia. He has participated in over 115 exhibitions around the world.

Maria Walther
Maria Walther is a painter born in the Netherlands. She studied fine arts at the Vrije Academie in The Hague (teachers and Wil Bouthoorn Sierhuis January) and the Minerva Academy in Groningen (Professor Jan de Boer). She started working with wood carvings, etchings and large format oil paintings that are rather abstract-like. She now works mainly on large formats using glazing techniques.

Artist’s statement :

Theo Allofs was born and raised in Germany. For the past 20 years he has been living in Canada’s remote Yukon Territory. After finishing his Masters Degree in Geology he pursued his dream and started a career as a travel photographer. In 1995 he began specializing in nature and wildlife photography. His main focus is on endangered species and habitats. Over the past 15 years he has extensively photographed all over the globe. His main topics are the landscapes and wildlife in Australia, South America and Southern Africa as well as the Bengal tigers in India. Theo’s work has been published in most world-renowned newspapers and magazines including the New York Times, National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, American Photo and GEO. He has won 11 awards in the prestigious BBC Wildlife Photographer of The Year competition. Theo is one of the founding members of the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP).

Exhibition : From November 8th to December 17th 2011

Artist’s statement :

My work has been variously described as realist, figurative, descriptive and narrative. Sometimes even as having a touch of surrealism. I don’t think it can be limited to just one of those adjectives, and yet each one of them has an element of truth in it.

The fact of the matter is that I seem to use a range of different ideas, which don’t seem connected with each other at first. This sometimes creates a problem for the viewer, as often artists are categorised and presented to the public with a “label”. I am not a landscapist, a surrealist, or a realist etc… yet perhaps, I am all those things at the same time.

The connection between the images I create, is the approach to the composition, the way I treat the light, the emphasis on the unusual, the angle, the humour sometimes… Each image tells a story, and as such perhaps deserves the term descriptive or narrative. The landscapes for instance are not always an exact epresentation, as I might add elements to it which were seen only later on. Usually, they are painted in my studio, weeks later, after having spent a lot of time sketching it, and photographing it, often on the move ( sometimes on the back of a horse as in Wyoming), so that I am totally immersed in it, and that way it is stills fresh in my memory when I actually start the painting.

As in the landscapes the other categories of images, are based on observation. An idea starts in my head, I follow it up by going sketching in public places, like museums , libraries, cafes, etc… which in turn feed my imagination, and steers me in a direction I had not always anticipated. It is a part of the work I really enjoy, as it is a bit like going on an adventure, not knowing what’s at the end.

The final result of all this, is an image which I hope conveys what I felt at the time, suggests a story, and invites the viewer to reflect, smile, and basically enjoy him or herself watching my work…

Perhaps it is worth mentioning Rembrandt, Vermeer, Turner, Toulouse –Lautrec, Frederic Russell, Edward hopper, René Magritte, Hergé, and Bartolomeo Dos Santos,
as the artists who most inspire me, and whose work I consistently go back to for help.

Exhibition : From November 8th to December 17th 2011

Artist’s statement :

Autodidacte dans le domaine des arts visuels, Odile Tellier est néamoins titulaire d’un bacalauréat en mathématiques et statistique à l’UQAM ainsi que d’une formation professionnelle en danse classique et contemporaine à l’École supérieure de ballet du Québec. S’étant toujours intéressée à toutes manifestations artistiques malgré ses différents intérêts, ce n’est que tardivement que la peinture devient la jonction, l’inatendu résultat, d’univers plutôt disparates: danse et mathématiques. Et depuis, c’est tous les jours qu’elle se salit les doigts avec tous les types de médiums et ce, sur tous les supports qui lui tombent sous la main. Peinture anti-rouille, au latex, en aérosol, encre pour imprimante, vernis à ongle sont le plus souvent balayés par de vieilles cartes de crédit . La toile, une scène: un espace de départ. Espace engendré par la puissance des couleurs, de quelques formes simples simplifiées au minimum ou alors complexifiées indéfiniment. Tel un mouvement, l’essentiel est dans l’instant présent : chaque fois, un algorithme à déchiffrer, une solution à exprimer. Les couleurs en sont les variables, les transformations de celles-ci sur la toile et le brassage des textures, leur résultantes.

Exhibition : From september 27th to october 15th 2011

Artist’s bio :

Née en 1964 à Montréal, Maryse Lapointe a grandi entourée d’œuvres de Riopelle, Lemieux, Fortin, Dallaire, Pellan, Borduas. Elle a étudié l’histoire de l’art en autodidacte et elle s’est mise à peindre à la fin des années 1990, particulièrement influencée par les mouvements expressionniste et néo-expressionniste (Chaïm Soutine, Otto Dix, Francis Bacon, Willem de Kooning, William Kentridge et Marc Séguin). Ses œuvres – huiles et pastels secs -, présentées dans plusieurs expositions au fil des années, se retrouvent dans des collections particulières au Québec et au Canada. Passionnée par toutes les formes d’art, Maryse Lapointe a étudié au Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Montréal puis en cinéma à l’Université de Montréal. Elle a écrit et réalisé deux moyens métrages (Éclipse et Le Caveau) et a publié divers articles sur le cinéma ainsi que deux livres (Mon voyage de pêche et Dieu dans tous ces états.). Elle joue aussi du piano et du violoncelle. Durant les années 2000, elle a été analyste principale au contenu à Téléfilm Canada puis directrice des émissions de fiction à TVA.

Exhibition : From september 27th to october 15th 2011

Artist’s statement :

Née à Montréal, Andra Fay Butler a aussi habité en France, en Allemagne et en Italie. Parmi ses réalisations académiques, Mme Butler se démarque par l’obtention d’une bourse d’études de première année, d’une mention honorable en quatrième année par le Ontario College of Arts, et du Certificat meilleur mérite académique du Sir Sandford Flemming College. Elle a de plus eu le privilèges d’effectuer des internats en conservation en Allemagne et au Musée des beaux-arts de l’Ontario. La vaste expérience professionnelle de Mme Butler inclut la pratique active de la restauration de la porcelaine, la création d’œuvres sur commande privée et la création de bijoux et d’accessoires décoratifs. Les talents d’artistes de Mme Butler ont aussi été mis à contribution dans différentes productions télévisuelles et cinématographiques pour la créations de toiles et d’autres objets d’art. Elle a de plus effectué du mentorat au Ontario College of Arts.

Exhibition : From september 27th to october 15th 2011

Artist’s statement :

Thus far, my focus, as a painter, has been the human form- specifically, the face. As a result, my appreciation for painting from photographs has evolved. Color, clarity, abstraction and detail: photographs capture many different visual qualities that I enjoy painting. When painting from photographs, my intentions are always to make paintings that look like paintings. I embrace the deviations that occur during translation because they make my paintings look more organic. I don’t like to “grid” or “project” because these methods give my paintings a mechanical look. It is a subtle yet crucial part of my work. It is the difference between a straight line drawn with a ruler and one drawn freehand.

Exhibition : August 16th to August 30th 2011