May 15, 2019

Colours - A reading list

During the last semester, I had the great pleasure and the privilege to be invited by François Vincent to take over one of his drawing classes at the National Theater School of Canada. François was awarded the Paris Studio of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec for six months, so he needed someone to replace him during this period. François has been teaching drawing in the Set and Costume Design Department for decades and he is so beloved by his students that these were very big shoes to fill… I was very honoured that he thought of me, so after accepting I quickly got to work… 

The students were truly great, very devoted to their craft and the investment that it takes to push ourselves further. It was a joy to teach them. I must say that this school really offers a great environment for the students to learn and become professionals in their field while promoting a beautiful philosophy of excellency. 



All this to say that after tackling sketching, watercolour, and life model sessions, I really wanted to teach a full class on colour. In order to prepare this PowerPoint presentation, I spent the winter enhancing my knowledge. Obviously, approaching a subject for teaching is very different than for our personal practice. In order to do so, I basically read and reread many, many books on the subject. Here is a short list of the books that I highly recommend without any hesitations and that we should all read if we are interested in any field that is related to the world of vision. 




First of all, the top of my list is the entire work devoted to colours by Michel Pastoureau! Not only is he one of the very very few historians specializing in colour, he is a great writer and a thorough thinker. His book “Les couleurs de nos souvenirs” won many international awards among which the 2010 Medicis award for the best essay. In order to establish the History of each colour, he is studying them via art history, myths, the use of language, symbolism, technical and scientific developments, moral, religion and the history of costume. I have read all his books in their original French version, but they are translated in English and easy to find. It is very simple: treat yourself and read them all!

Note : the links brings you to amazon Canada so you can have the information on each book. Please order them through your local independent bookstore. We don't want them to disappear! 



Français                                           English

Français                                           English

Français                                           English

Français                                           English

Français                                           English

Français

Français

Rejoice! The new book of Pastoureau on the colour Yellow is coming out later this year (November 2019). I'm sure it will be another great read to add to the list. 


Link

The second place of my list must go to Philip Ball’s “Bright Earth: Art and the Invention of Color”. Philip Ball is a British chemist and science writer. His history of pigments and colours is both rooted in art and science; most importantly how both aspects are ultimately intertwining and co-dependant. A great read that will stimulate any painter and colour user.

Français                                           English

In the same vein, I went back to a book I read more than twenty years ago, before the previous books even existed: “The History of Colors” by Manlio Brusatin. This book might not be as thorough as the previous ones, but this 1983 Italian book is dedicated to the return of painting! What is there not to love?


Français                                           English

It is interesting to notice that when reading so many different books on a subject you actually end up reading things in some books that are not true at all. All the books in this post I personally own and are a strong read, but I got a few books from the library that were actually stating falsehoods. Beware. 

A good option if you want to read a more illustrated book on the science of colour: “The Secret Language of Color” by Joann Eckstut and Arielle Eckstut. It explains the electromagnetic waves, the anatomy of the eye, colour perception, the physic of rainbows, animal vision and much more.  A good coffee table type book. “Light, The Visible Spectrum and Beyond” by Kimberly Arcand and Megan Watzke is a good complementary book that talks more about nature, the cosmos and physics.


English
English

Finally, in the category of teaching how to use colours, I foremost recommend “Colour, A workshop for artists and designers” by David Hornung. It is a great resource on colour interaction, theory and principles. The second option for a hands-on approach is “Color, A course in mastering the art of mixing colours” by Betty Edwards. She is world-famous for her book “Drawing on the right side of the brain”, but her approach on teaching colour is also interesting.


Français                                           English

English

Maybe the ancestor of Pantone colour coding is the “Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours”. First published in 1814, this guide to name colours in a systematic way was used by Charles Darwin to describe the colours he encounters in nature through his voyage and his research. The names and the charts are beautiful and can ignite ideas for any colourful project.

English

There are tons of “How to” books on colours and how to use colours while painting. The two books that I kept from my university years are “The Book of Color” by José Maria Parramón and “Art Fundamentals, Theory and Practice” by Otto Ocvirk, Robert Stinson, Philip Wigg, Robert Bone and David Cayton. They are now at the 12th edition, but I got the 7th. This book covers the basis of the corpus defining art courses across countries and a good teaching aid.

English

English

As a bonus, here are a few YouTube videos on colours that I find interesting. 

The mystery of Magenta :


Top 10 Best use of Colours in movies :


The surprising pattern behind colour names around the world :
(note: the spectrum they show at the begining is wrong in so many ways...) 

How Jack White uses Colours : 


March 24, 2019

les écrits



 When Are We?
or
The Absolute Painting of Alexandre Masino




Essai by Jean-Marc Desgent
les écrits number 153
Fall 2018



Épigraphe (Le miroir), 2018
Encaustique, feuille d’or et de cuivre sur panneau
Encaustic, gold and copper leaf on panel
40” x 28” / 102 x 71 cm


Alexandre Masino eats, sleeps, reads to paint. I remember meeting him on Saint-Charles Street in Longueuil several years ago, devouring a peach or pear he had pulled out of a bag full of fruit he wanted to paint. The fruit he was eating would eventually end up in one of his canvases, he told me. And so, the fruit that was food would later on be turned into a work of art… He couldn’t not paint it, because he had tasted it, he had swallowed it, thus transforming it into a sort of eternity, as in Rêves éveillés (page 28) or L’arbre d’Idunn (page 36). He eats, reads, sleeps the same way he speaks, in painting, for painting, about painting, he discusses colour, hue, plays of different luminosities, he paints his very being, or what becomes the fruit of his being, in painting.



Rêves éveillés, 2015
Encaustique et feuille d'or sur panneau
Encaustic and gold leaf on panel
32” x 46” / 81 x 117 cm





L’arbre d’Idunn, 2014
Encaustique et feuille d’or sur panneau
Encaustic and gold leaf on panel
25” x 40” / 63.5 x 102 cm




Masino shows us a tangible world (fruit, trees and landscapes, books, sailboats, objects of all kinds), but he also makes us feel his skilful gestures in materials both light and heavy, in fine lines and broad brushstrokes. From these “images” of reality, all these artistic techniques, there emerge, disappear and metamorphose, beneath the visible surface of the painting, silhouettes, moving, seething shadows. And if these silhouettes, these disturbing shadows truly exist, if they move, if they reach out to us, it is because they obey another presence than that of the viewer’s gaze alone, they live in the light that changes continually, in the subtle shift in luminosity and the viewer’s own imperceptible vibration, as the viewer’s retina is thrown into confusion, vibrates intensely.


Kintsukuroi, 2014
Encaustique et feuille d’or sur panneau
Encaustic and gold leaf on panel
11” x 12” / 28 x 30.5 cm


These shadows, like the angels and their mysteries, live, come, go away and come back through the dance of light on the encaustic and the glazes, the transparencies, through the various impastos worked by the painter’s careful gestures (painting in encaustic demands fast thinking and constant consideration of the gestures made on the canvas); they live, come, go away and come back through the viewers’ entire bodies: bodies and light, bodies in the light, inner agitations of the beings who watch and recreate these presences through the transparencies offered by Masino. Viewers and light together destroy and reinvent these ghostly figures repeatedly, and infinitely differently—as, for instance, in Tabla luna (page 9) or Le souffle de la mer (pages 92–93). 


Échos et résonances, 2016
Encaustique et feuille de cuivre sur panneau
Encaustic and copper leaf on panel
46” x 32” / 117 x 81 cm




How many paintings are there in a Masino painting? His extraordinary use of encaustic makes possible all these effects of life, of momentary disappearances, of ethereal matter, of mountainous immaterialities. Masino’s painting is within the time of light; it is furtive, subtle or dazzling shifts of light, in solar or electric lighting (modernity means that too!). Consequently, his paintings don’t “show” properly when presented to governmental or private juries judging his works from slides, in the old days, or from digital photographs, now. On these technical supports, everything is “flattened”; the reliefs produced by the constant changes in light disappear, as does the materiality of the encaustic. All that remains is fruit, boats, landscapes… The most ordinary of subjects. On these technical supports, there is nothing that strikes or skims over the encaustic, the glazes, the gold or copper leaf regularly used by the painter. Printed reproductions of his paintings (like the ones readers see here) don’t convey these plays, these effects, the painter’s pictorial intelligence. And painting, we often forget, is not snapping a photograph of an art object; painting is mastering light and the working of the pictorial material. The viewers (here, the readers) must understand that a photograph of a painting is absolutely not the painting, understand that they are not looking at the work, the actual work, produced by the painter: his actual colours, his gestures, even his dimensions. For more on this subject, you would need to delve into Jean-François Lyotard’s major (though short) essay, Anima minima, published in 1993 in Moralités postmodernes, and in 1997 in English in Postmodern Fables.


Les êtres étoilés II, 2014
Intaglio, feuille d'or & encaustique monoprint sur papier Kozo
Intaglio, gold leaf & encaustic monoprint on Kozo paper
12.5” x 10.5” / 32 cm x 27 cm

Obsession with painting, tenacious working of the encaustic, changes in light—all three accurately define the painter’s process, but we also have to talk about the unfolding of multiple times in his painting, in the paintings. What is the hour? What time are we in? Or rather: what are the hours, what times are we in? Times that are distended, suspended, held back and that, ultimately, slide toward us as a result of the artist’s inventive tenacity, the encaustic itself, the plays of light created naturally or with electricity, and the time shifts of the artistic references: that is how Masino’s absolute painting develops. All four together in a common, thought-out dynamic produce visuals and conceptual vibratory effects. The painter places us and moves us about from one period of antiquity to another or to our own, reminds us of ancient icons or Renaissance figures, 19th-century seascapes (Le chant de l’eau, page 106), the symbolism of a certain Van Gogh (Jusqu’à la porte du ciel, page 136), the still lifes of Cézanne (Mnémosyne, pages 19–20), carrying us across the Atlantic Ocean en route to Europe, or across the Pacific on a journey to the Far East (Échos et résonances, page 48).


Le souffle de la mer, 2016
Monotype à l'encaustique sur papier Gampi
Encaustic monotype on Gampi paper
12.5” x 28” / 32 x 71 cm



Zénith et Nadir, 2016
Encaustique sur panneau
Encaustic on panel
64” x 48” / 163 x 122 cm

When are we? We were, are and will be in all times, in all lights — those of the morning as well as those of later hours, looking at large books (L’écume du temps, page 124) lying open as if they were set on medieval lecterns at which monk transcribers did their work. As I stated in another essay on Masino, the Longueuil artist’s painting synthesizes and suggests all our times throughout the history of painting; in front of each of the painter’s works, the viewer—each viewer—could wonder, among other questions: Since when have I been? At what moment do I appear? At what time will I disappear? It is also nature “perpetuated,” as opposed to a nature that dies, that one kills.


L’écume du temps (Ehon), 2015
Encaustique, fusain et clous antiques sur livre monté sur panneau
Encaustic, charcoal and antique nails on book on panel
17” x 28.5” / 43 x 72 cm




Émergences, 2018
Encaustique sur panneau
Encaustic on panel
40” x 60” / 101.5 x 152.5 cm


Just like his human figures that have become icons, images of death surmounted, transcended, that come back to our minds and that precede us. Times suspended and multiplied, icons past, ancient, medieval, Renaissance or modern in their treatments, their vibrations or their suggested wounds fascinate our modest temporality. His portraits are the times of the work. His absolute painting contrasts with the temporary, the event, the performance. For example, it’s Masino who painted the portrait on the front cover of my collection Strange Fruits (Les êtres étoilés II, page 87), which is typical of his style. How many readers have asked me where I found this painting from the Italian Renaissance? I answered that it would be impossible to find such an iconography, such a manner, such a disorganized organization in all the painting from that time. And the reaction was always the same: surprise mixed with a sudden realization… This work is not Renaissance, but Masino’s work refers to it, locates itself precisely at the centre of Western painting, travelling, in a perpetual journey back and forth, from a 15th or 16th century, whether probable or not, to our time, now.


Au sein du temps II, 2018
Monotype à l'encaustique sur papier Kozo
Encaustic monotype on Kozo paper
12” x 18” / 30.5 x 46 cm




As if his painting worked in an a-chronical time, played with time, matter and light, questioned them, danced with them and turned them all around. As if the painter and the viewer had become the places beyond time when all times in art merge together, while also eluding each of those times. As if the painter and the viewer asked, or asked themselves, the question: When are we?



Jean-Marc Desgent
Longueuil, July 2018

Translated by Susan Le Pan




les écrits



Quand sommes-nous?
ou
L’absolue-peinture d’Alexandre Masino




 
Texte de Jean-Marc Desgent
 Les écrits numéro 153,
automne 2018



Tabla luna, 2015
Encaustique et feuille d'or sur panneau
Encaustic and gold leaf on panel
30” x 48” / 76 x 122 cm


 Alexandre Masino mange, dort, lit pour peindre. Je me souviens l’avoir rencontré sur la rue Saint-Charles, à Longueuil, il y a de ça plusieurs années, dévorant une pêche ou une poire puisée dans un sac rempli de fruits qu’il voulait peindre et le fruit qu’il était en train de manger finirait éventuellement sur une de ses toiles, m’a-t-il dit… Il ne pouvait pas ne pas le peindre puisqu’il l’avait goûté, l’avait avalé le métamorphosant ainsi en une sorte d’éternité comme dans Rêves éveillés (page 28) ou L’arbre d’Idunn (page 36). Il mange, lit, dort, tout comme il parle en peinture, pour la peinture, de la peinture, il discute couleurs, tons, jeux des différentes luminosités, il peint son être ou ce qui devient le fruit de son être, en peinture.




Mnemosyne (Objet - Temps), 2016
Encaustique et feuille d'or sur panneau
Encaustic and gold leaf on panel
48.5” x 32.5” / 123 x 82.5 cm - Fermé / Close
48.5” x 65.5” / 123 x 166 cm - Ouvert / Open



Masino nous donne à voir un monde concret ( fruits, arbres et paysages, livres, voiliers et objets de toutes sortes ) mais aussi, il nous fait ressentir ses gestes calés en des matières légères ou pesantes, par des traits fins ou par de larges coups de pinceau, et à partir de ces «images» du réel, de toutes ces techniques artistiques, surviennent, disparaissent, se transforment sous la surface évidente du tableau, des silhouettes, des ombres mouvantes, bouillonnantes et, si ces silhouettes, ces ombres troublantes existent bel et bien, si celles-ci bougent, si elles viennent à nous, c’est qu’elles obéissent à une autre présence que celle du seul regard du spectateur, elles vivent par la lumière changeante à souhait, par le déplacement subtil de la luminosité et l’imperceptible vibration du spectateur lui-même car sa rétine est bouleversée, elle vibre intensément.




Kintsukuroi, 2014
Encaustique et feuille d’or sur panneau
Encaustic and gold leaf on panel
11” x 12” / 28 x 30.5 cm



Paroles et silence, 2015
Encaustique et feuille d'or sur panneau
Encaustic and gold leaf on panel
16” x 16” / 40.5 x 40.5 cm



Ces ombres, comme les anges et leurs mystères, vivent, viennent, s’en vont, reviennent par la danse de la lumière sur l’encaustique et les glacis, les transparences, par ses divers empâtements travaillés par la gestuelle réfléchie du peintre (peindre à l’encaustique exige de penser vite et de constamment songer aux gestes posées sur la toile), vivent, viennent, s’en vont, reviennent par le corps entier des spectateurs; ces derniers, corps et lumière, corps dans la lumière, agitations intérieures des êtres qui regardent, recréent ces présences au moyen des transparences proposées par Masino. Spectateurs et lumière détruisent, réinventent continuellement, indéfiniment différentes aussi, ces figures fantomatiques; je pense, ici à Tabla luna (page 9) ou à Le souffle de la mer (page 92-93).




La présence du réel, 2017
Encaustique et feuille d’or sur toile de lin sur panneau
Encaustic and gold leaf on linen canvas on panel
32” x 46” / 81 x 117 cm


Combien de tableaux y a-t-il dans un tableau de Masino? Son utilisation singulière de l’encaustique permet tous ces effets de vie, de disparitions momentanées, de matière éthérée, de montagneuses immatérialités. La peinture de Masino est dans le temps de la lumière, passages furtifs, subtils ou éclatants de la lumière sous éclairages solaire ou électrique (c’est aussi ça, la modernité!). Conséquemment, ses tableaux «passent mal» lors de représentations auprès des différents jurys gouvernementaux ou privés jugeant ses œuvres à partir de diapositives, à l’époque, de photographies digitales, maintenant. Sur ces supports techniques, tout est «aplati», disparaissent les reliefs produits par les changements constants de la lumière, disparaît la matière travaillée de l’encaustique. Il ne reste plus que des fruits, des bateaux, des paysages… Sujets banals, s’il en est… Sur ces supports techniques, il n’y a rien qui vient frapper ou lécher l’encaustique, les glacis, les feuilles d’or ou de bronze constamment utilisées par le peintre. Les représentations imprimées de ses tableaux (comme celles que vous avez sous les yeux, chère lectrice, cher lecteur) ne rendent pas ces jeux, ces effets, ses intelligences picturales. Et peindre, on l’oublie beaucoup, ce n’est pas prendre une photographie d’un objet artistique, peindre, c’est assumer la lumière et le travail de la matière picturale. Les spectateurs (ici, lectrices et lecteurs) doivent comprendre que la photo d’un tableau n’est absolument pas le tableau, comprendre qu’ils ne sont pas devant l’œuvre, l’œuvre vraie, travaillée par le peintre: ses réelles couleurs, sa gestuelle, même ses dimensions. À ce sujet, il faudrait se plonger dans le grand texte (tout court, par ailleurs) de Jean-François Lyotard, Anima minima, publié en 1993, dans, Moralités postmodernes.



Les étreintes de nuit I, 2017
Intaglio, feuille d’or & encaustique monoprint sur papier Gampi
Intaglio, gold leaf, & encaustic monoprint on Gampi paper
47 x 43 cm \ 18.5" x 17"



Obsession de la peinture, travail acharné de l’encaustique, changements de luminosité, tous trois circonscrivent bien la démarche du peintre mais, aussi il faut parler du déploiement des temps pluriels de sa peinture, dans la peinture. Quelle heure est-il? Quel temps fait-il? Je devrais plutôt écrire: quelles heures sont-elles, en quels temps somme-nous? Temps distendus, suspendus, retenus, et, finalement, glissant jusqu’à nous grâce à l’acharnement inventif, à l’encaustique elle-même, aux jeux provoqués de lumières naturelles ou électriques et aux déplacements temporels des références artistiques, voilà comment s’élabore l’absolue-peinture de Masino. Tous les quatre ensemble dans une dynamique commune et réfléchie produisent des effets vibratoires visuels et conceptuels. Le peintre nous place et nous déplace d’une époque ancienne à une autre ou à la nôtre, nous remémore les icônes de l’Antiquité ou les figures de la Renaissance, les marines du 19e siècle (Le chant de l’eau, page 106), le symbolisme d’un certain Van Gogh (Jusqu’à la porte du ciel, page 136), les natures mortes de Cézanne (Mnémosyne, page 19-20), nous faisant traverser l’océan Atlantique, en route vers l’Europe ou celui du Pacifique, en route vers l’Extrême-Orient (Échos et résonances, page 48).



Le chant de l’eau, 2016
Monotype à l'encaustique sur papier Népalais
Encaustic monotype on Nepalese paper
30” x 20” / 76 x 51 cm



Passage, 2016
Monotype à l'encaustique et feuille d’or sur papier Tatemi
Encaustic monotype and gold leaf  on Tatemi paper
12.5” x 28” / 32 x 71 cm


Quand sommes-nous? Nous étions, nous sommes et serons à tous les temps, à toutes les lumières, celles du matin comme celles des heures plus tardives, devant de grands livres ouverts (L’écume du temps, page 124) comme s’ils étaient posés sur des pupitres médiévaux devant lesquels les moines copistes travaillaient. Comme je l’affirmais dans un autre texte sur Masino, la peinture du Longueuillois synthétise et propose tous nos temps dans l’histoire de la peinture, devant chaque œuvre du peintre, le spectateur, chaque spectateur pourrait, entre autres, se poser les questions: Depuis quand suis-je? À quel moment est-ce que j’apparais? À quelle heure est-ce que je disparaîtrai? C’est aussi la nature «perpétuée», opposée à une nature qui se meurt, que l’on tue. 



L’écume du temps (Ehon), 2015
Encaustique, fusain et clous antiques sur livre monté sur panneau 
Encaustic, charcoal and antique nails on book on panel
17” x 28.5” / 43 x 72 cm




Tout comme ses figures humaines devenues icônes, images de la mort dépassée, transcendée, qui se rappellent à nous et qui nous devancent. Temps suspendus et démultipliés, icônes passées, antiques, médiévales, renaissantes ou modernes par leurs traitements, leurs vibrations ou leurs blessures suggérées fascinent notre petite temporalité. Ses portraits sont les temps de l’œuvre. Son absolue-peinture s’oppose au temporaire, à l’événementiel, à la performance. Par exemple, c’est Alexandre Masino qui a peint le portrait de la première de couverture de mon recueil, Strange Fruits (Les êtres étoilés II, page 87), qui est typique de sa manière… Combien de lecteurs m’ont demandé où avais-je trouvé ce tableau de la Renaissance italienne? Je répondais qu’il serait impossible de trouver une telle iconographie, une telle manière, une telle organisation désorganisée dans l’ensemble de la peinture de cette époque. Et la réaction était toujours la même: étonnement mêlé à une soudaine prise de conscience… Cette œuvre n’est pas renaissante, mais l’œuvre de Masino y fait référence, se situe justement au cœur de la peinture occidentale, voyageant, en aller-retour perpétuel, d’un quinzième ou d’un seizième siècle probable ou non jusqu’à nous, maintenant. 



Jusqu’à la porte du ciel, 2018
Encaustique sur panneau
Encaustic on panel
18” x 26” / 46 x 66 cm

Comme si sa peinture travaillait dans un temps a-chronique, jouait avec le temps, la matière et la lumière, les prenait à partie, dansait avec eux et les retournait en tous sens. Comme si le peintre et le spectateur étaient devenus les lieux sur-temporels où tous les moments de l’art se fusionnaient, tout en échappant à chacun d’eux. Comme si le peintre et le spectateur posaient ou se posaient la question: Quand sommes-nous?


Jean-Marc Desgent
Longueuil, juillet 2018



July 5, 2017

Yechel Gagnon



YECHEL GAGNON: PROJECT

CYNTHIA-REEVES

June 3 - July 8, 2017
Artist working on site June 11 - 18, 2017



Yechel Gagnon, Project, installed at CYNTHIA-REEVES 
on the campus of MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA


CYNTHIA-REEVES presents an exhibition of new projects by Canadian artist, Yechel Gagnon. The show runs from Saturday, June 3 – July 8 at CYNTHIA-REEVES, located on the campus of MASS MoCA at 1315 MASS MoCA Way. 


Yechel Gagnon working on site at CYNTHIA-REEVES 
on the campus of MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA



As part of the gallery’s new project initiative, the artist will work on-site from June 11-18, to create a final iteration of works in progress. This will be the first exhibition of the gallery’s new program, which emphasizes both art-making and exhibition. Gagnon will be available to visitors to discuss the works in process, and to demonstrate the handwork and thought process behind her final installations.


Yechel Gagnon : Project


Yechel Gagnon’s close engagement with the textural and tactile qualities of her media serves as the foundation for her inquiry. Projects include plywood bas-reliefs, embossed prints, frottage drawings, cast-aluminum works and large-scale architectural installations.


Yechel Gagnon : Project


Working in mixed-media creates a forum for cross-pollination: she employs tools and techniques devised for unfolding, layering and excavating imagery, incorporating the multiple textures to great effect. Often, the resulting works have a beautiful, unforced reference to the natural world, while communicating an innate tension and dynamism.



Yechel Gagnon : Project


Yechel Gagnon : Project


 Yechel Gagnon : Project


Her most recent works take her process to the next level: Gagnon uses the plywood bas-relief as a beginning point for free-form drawing directly onto the walls, elaborating the lines suggested in the sculptural work and extending them beyond the confines of the material. All at once, the wall-based objects become a nodal point of tremendous activity in the midst of fluid, gestural drawing.


 Yechel Gagnon : Project


 Yechel Gagnon : Project


Yechel Gagnon : Project


Yechel Gagnon : Project


Yechel Gagnon : Project


Yechel Gagnon : Project


Born in Longueuil in 1973, Yechel Gagnon holds a Master of Fine Arts Degree (Studio Arts) from Concordia University and an AOCAD with Honors in Drawing and Painting from the Ontario College of Art and Design. Her works are exhibited in galleries, art institutes, and museums in Canada, the United States, France and China. Her public artworks and exhibitions have attracted reviews by noted critics and curators. Commissions of public artworks have been awarded to her by Bishop’s University, Licorne Theatre, Jean-de- Brebeuf College and the University of Montreal, among others. She is recipient of numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec and the Conseil des arts de Longueuil. Gagnon’s works are represented in public, corporate and private collections, including the National Art Museum of China (Beijing), 4 World Trade Center (New York), Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (Halifax), City of Montreal, Osler Hoskin & Harcourt Collection (Toronto), and the Gotlands Konsmuseum (Sweden).


 Yechel Gagnon : Project


Yechel Gagnon : Project


CYNTHIA-REEVES represents an international roster of established artists who share a process-apparent sensibility in their work. We are committed to artwork that demonstrates an authentic voice, an innovative use of materials, and an appreciation of the mark in diverse media: site-based installation, video, sculpture, painting and works on paper.

They initiate public art projects in the US and abroad placing large-scale works in the public domain for both permanent and temporary installations, in such locations as New York City, London, Boston, San Diego, Miami, Salt Lake City, Philadelphia, Las Vegas and Dallas.


Yechel Gagnon, Oceanic Legends, 2017, 
carved custom plywood of tinted veneers, 96 x 144 inches



Yechel Gagnon, Oceanic Legends, detail


CYNTHIA-REEVES has galleries on the campus of MASS MoCA in the Berkshires, and in Walpole, New Hampshire, with additional staff offices in New York and Boston. For more information on these artists, please visit the online gallery at CYNTHIA-REEVES.com or call 212 714 0044.



Yechel Gagnon working on site at CYNTHIA-REEVES 
on the campus of MASS MoCA in North Adams, MA



CYNTHIA-REEVES
1315 MASS MoCA Way, 
North Adams, MA

Contact: Kristen Jussila, 
k_jussila@cynthia-reeves.com 
413.398.5257