PDF soon available with 2020 update

PDF disponible sous peu avec révisions pour 2020

 

ARTIST STATEMENT

 

CANCER

From diagnosis to remission, the high relief paintings narrate my internal journey with cancer. Symbolically sharing part of myself through images of shale encrusted scars and silver lining paint strokes, the pieces became a therapeutic expression. The trees and other symbols evolved as I did. Leafless, but still strong-standing ''Alopecia'' came out of me the day I lost my hair while my latest trees have seeds for leaves and are gradually burgeoning in colour, a clear parallel to the return of my natural vitality. 

 

REVIV'ART

In the salvaged medical shelves, weathered closet doors, leftover caulking, tiny seeds and passed over highway stones, object recuperation is central to my practice. In my work, their rugged aesthetic fearlessly states, ''the medium is the message''. Many living, breathing trees are sentenced to death every year to produce materials we shamelessly toss away; however, people rarely throw away art. I seek to give these once discarded materials permanent life, a newfound beauty, a revitalized purpose and yearn to reveal the concrete beauty in our delicate and impermanent nature, as I have been blessed to bear witness to since my remission. 

 

Mathieu Francoeur

April 2015