Lors de mes randonnées, j'ai accumulé. Ces peintures sont à l'huile et je ai les présentées en personne à l'automne 2023, chez mai/son.
In an effort to teach myself landscape painting, and to improve my oil technique (two tasks I found quite daunting two years ago), I set on a mission to collect 100 plein-air pieces. I hiked the East Coast Trail in Newfoundland, I climbed peaks in BC, I sat behind the wheel of my small car in La Malbaie in -25c, I got whipped by sand on windy beaches in Cape Cod and sunburnt in North Carolina. I watched the tide roll in and twisted my ankles.
I exhibited the paintings (about 70 landscapes on pocket-sized masonite boards) at Mai/son, an old two-story house turned into a venue. On the first floor, paintings were placed all around, leaning on tables and structures of recycled wood. A Jim hall album played in the background. Guests were invited to give titles to the paintings (which produced gems such as "The Camper Van is Getting Cold" and "Ça C'est Une Belle Plage").
At the foot of the grand staircase, a sign read "The True Banquet Lies Above". The curious few who ventured upstairs came upon a doorman. The doorman was instructed to let one person at a time into the room he guarded, and to give them a handheld oil lamp...
I was too busy running around to photograph the main event, which included a stellar performance by VACUUMSPACEINHALER.
When I invite bands to play I like to orchestrate their mouvements. At unexpected moments during the vernissage, the band would jolt the audience awake with a burst of sound, play a song, then dissapear behind curtains.
In the brief 2-3 minutes they played their songs, the band was surrounded by MIRRORS OF DISGUST (shown below at an art fair hosted by The Rose Festival MTL); the audience was forced to watch their own reflections while watching the set.
AND on top of all that, there was a "hidden room" à l'étage. But I guess you just had to be there;
Alone in the darkness with nothing but an oil lamp to find your way through the crowd of painted faces, soundtracked by dissonant piano slides, laughter, metallic jolts and the sound bleeding in from the main room below.
