Paul Brunet

Peinture Extrême Painting

August 18-September 9, 2010


Projex-Mtl is very pleased to present in the context of ‘Peinture Extrême Painting’, the first solo exhibition in Montréal of Quebec City based artist Paul Brunet.
The artist says about this work “I establish an esthetic of displacement by appropriating a multitude of images, icons and various pictorial approaches. Approaching painting from a colorist perspective, my works can be mostly composed of characters and atmospheres drawn from the mass medias such as television, comics, video games and cinema but also from art history. They present a strange amalgamation where the tragic, dubbed with a dubious sense of humor becomes absurd and ironic. Bringing together incongruous juxtapositions of iconographic images, my works take the shape of allegories questioning the space that occupy the mediated image in our collective imaginary.”
Using digital technology at the initial conceptual stage of creating my images, I am also addressing the recent preoccupations in conceptual aesthetics such as the creation of spaces that oscillate between bi dimensionality and tri dimensionality, and the graphic aspect of the vectorized image. Even if my images are at the limit of illustration, the importance of the material aspect of the work remains important in my practice. I am especially attentive to the effects produced by the positioning of the works in the exhibition space, whether exhibiting one painting, a diptych a polyptich or a painting installation. In my latest works, I am particularly interested to this aspect putting the emphasis on the formal arrangement and the creation of narratives that can be produced between the different works in the various exhibition spaces.”

In 2005, Paul Brunet received the Vigie-Paintng grant. Recently, the artist exhibited his work at ‘L’Écart’…lieu d’art actuel, in Rouyn-Noranda, Qc, at Caravansérail, Rimouski, Qc at ‘La Chambre Blanche’, in Quebec City. He is also coordinator of ‘Pan! Peinture’, a symposium of contemporary painting in Quebec City, since 2008 the second year of that event. Presently, he is also preparing an exhibition at the artist run center ‘Regart’, in Lévis, Qc that will be presented in January and February 2011.

We would like to announce as well that the exhibition of Paul Brunet will signal the end of the first 5 years of existence of Projex-Mtl. Projex-Mtl becomes Laroche/Joncas with our next exhibition starting September 11, 2010 : Yves Tessier, (new works).
Thank you very much !
André Laroche, Louis Joncas

image: La Mort d'Alba, 2009, Acrylic and spray paint on canvas. 152.5 x 122 cm