Contemporary painter Jean Gaudreau was born in Quebec City in 1964. He earned a college diploma in plastic arts and a bachelor's degree in visual arts from Laval University in 1988. He uses a variety of techniques, including oil painting, acrylic painting, and mixed media. Exuberant, colorful, and restless, Jean Gaudreau's painting leaves no one indifferent. He is one of those artists who reminds us how art is a visceral activity, both a way of life and, often, a reason for existing. It's hard to remain indifferent to the charisma that characterizes Jean Gaudreau. As is the passion he cultivates for his craft and for painting. For him, painting seems like an insatiable need. In his compositions, the artist plays with elaborate stagings where characters borrowed from the world of circus and dance, sometimes dynamic, sometimes static, are incorporated into the different formal elements to create an open and animated universe. In terms of the characters, he chose to stage subjects of a threadlike appearance in order to emphasize the importance of movements. Thus, the arms and legs of the characters sometimes seem to stretch to infinity, giving the viewer the impression that they embrace the entire universe. "I like to play with contrasts!" says the artist. "It allows me to explore the raw origins of humanity and to draw out emotions from the skin. I have always been fascinated by the starting point of emotions and I believe that by going to the source of things, we are able to delve into the heart of what constitutes our humanity."
A living colorful painting
"Some people see Jean Gaudreau's painting as nothing more than abstraction. However, his pictorial universe is highly suggestive and bears the imprint of the recognizable, although often hidden in the tangles of matter. Over the years, his exploration has become increasingly complicit with the materials he uses. These are an integral part of his approach and constitute a primary reading path. Dance, the circus, and his living environment are also recurring inspirations. They mark its rhythm, they are its matrix." Robert Bernier
In 2009, Jean Gaudreau was offered a role in the latest edition of Robert Lepage's Moulin a images (Ex Machina). Other painters appearing in the updated edition of Moulin a images include Jean-Paul Lemieux, Alfred Pellan, and Jean-Paul Riopelle.
A Quebec painter, Jean Gaudreau's works are part of many public and private collections, such as that of the Cirque du Soleil, which chose him to exhibit around twenty of his paintings at its international headquarters in Montreal in 2003, the Charlesbourg district, the National Library of Canada, the Imperial Theatre of Quebec, Quebecor, as well as that of the Premier Tech company, to name just a few.
ADDITIONAL ARTICLE(S):
Jean Gaudreau (1964)
Jean Gaudreau's painting is still relatively unknown to the general public. It must be said that the artist is still young. Considering the energy he puts into producing and creating events around his painting, there is no doubt that this situation could change in the near future. Active in the world of visual arts since the mid-1980s, Gaudreau worked until recently in Quebec City, where he enjoys a certain reputation among a growing circle of collectors[…]
[…] However, his painting has changed significantly in his latest production. From a somewhat muddled style in which the links between the surface, the bodies and the graphic signs were sometimes difficult to grasp, from a dark palette enlivened by wild gestures, Gaudreau has moved on to a more grounded, more concise production, where the general spirit of the works is better defined. This is an important step in his approach, which testifies to a certain maturation.
Thus, beyond a more emphatic surface structure, the main quality of Gaudreau's new works is the ability to express a more deeply felt and, consequently, better directed artistic intention[…]
Source: Robert Bernier, La peinture au Québec depuis les années 1960, Les Éditions de l’Homme, 2002, Gaudreau Jean Gaudreau (1964), pages 218-219.
