Sous le vernis

Éric Lamontagne presents Réal Lessart

From May 14th to June 25th 2022

-Gallery II-

Sous le vernis

Sous le vernis is an exhibition-installation that could almost be described as an exhibition-event, because Éric Lamontagne’s immersive work is so singular in the current art scene. The result of an important project spread out over many years, the work benefits from the painter’s technical mastery and a well-assumed playfulness to create a particular setting. The viewers are encouraged to enter a sort of grand-scale trompe-l’oeil, and follow the thread of a narrative that extends even beyond the exhibition space.

In an atypical position that almost refers more to literature than to visual art and in which the narration occupies a dominating place, the artist conceives of a whole world before he places the various elements in Sous le vernis. From the start, the artist’s design for the invitation, to promote the exhibition, reveals some clues, resembling a “confidential” file that has an aura of espionage or police investigation. Here we discover important parameters: first, the protagonist, Réal Lessart, is a character inspired by the famous Quebec forger. Then, the setting: an office, a library or a study, is inspired by the 19th century, if not the early 20th century. Finally, the quest: for Lessart, is to produce his masterpiece, and for the public, is to follow him in his adventure that will unfold throughout the exhibition, and perhaps unmask him…

The proposal is seductive on many levels. The installation opens a time-space that relates, both in the aesthetics and in the references that the artist invokes, to the golden age of detective stories made up of closed doors and mysteries to be solved with clues and deduction. To use Éric Lamontagne’s term, this is a sort of “painted detective story” in which the work is indeed strewn with visual winks, anachronisms and Quebecisms that situate us between here and elsewhere, past and present, fiction and reality. Images within the image magnify this effect, and abstract patterns, paintings, mirrors, erasures and other holes suggest secret passages from one world to another, escape routes or hiding places, which we don’t know if they are intended for us or for the forger. This double game, of seeing and being seen, intermingles and blurs the tracks.

But, the use of oil paint as the work’s main medium also has an obvious attraction. It restores both the artist’s technical virtuosity, which compels admiration, and the labour required to build such an imposing grouping. Transfixed as we are in front of the perfection of representation, in the era of photographic reproducibility, our gaze is posed on each detail with more acuity. The work’s complexity contributes, of course, to wonder, but also to our impression of taking part in a grandiose and unexpected experience that is capable of completely transforming reality for a moment.

Marie-Pier Bocquet

Author Biography

Author and art historian Marie-Pier Bocquet holds a master’s degree in art history from Université du Québec à Montréal (2020). She is also the artistic director and general manager of Arprim, a centre for experimental print art. Since 2014, she has been on the editorial board of the drawing magazine HB. She has curated the exhibitions Perspectives excentrées at Zocalo, artists’ centre (2021), Faire monde : regard sur les microcosmes de Catherine Magnan et d’Andréanne Gagnon, at the artist-run centre Caravansérail in 2014 and co-curated the exhibition HB nº 6 / HORS PAGE, presented at the Centre d’art et de diffusion Clark in 2017. Her texts have been published in art magazines such as esse arts + opinions, Espace art actuel and Vie des arts, as well as in the opuscules of Art Mûr gallery, Galerie Nicolas Robert, Centre d’art et de diffusion Clark and CIRCA art actuel.

Artist Biography

Éric Lamontagne is interested in everything that goes on around him, especially his perception of what he sees, as well as play and science, which influence his work. For him, art is an opportunity to learn through wonder. His installation practice involves painting, photography, walking and any other activity that he believes is relevant to his creative flights of fancy.

He has had numerous exhibitions, including Du haut de mon sous-sol at Salle Alfred-Pellan, which earned him the “Exhibition of the Year Award – Centre d’exposition” at the Gala des arts visuels and one of Isa Tousignant’s “Top 3” best exhibitions for Canadian Art magazine. In 2004, curator Mona Hakim invited him to participate in the International Contemporary Art Symposium of Baie-Saint-Paul in which the theme was the photographic in painting. His work has been shown at Alternator Gallery (Kelowna, BC), Design Festa Gallery (Tokyo, Japan), Gallery DeOverslag (Eindhoven, Holland), Vu photo (Quebec City) and the Musée régional de Rimouski. In the past, he also took over the windows for a trompe-l’oeil exhibition at the now defunct Joyce Yahouda Gallery. And recently, Emmanuelle Choquette, an independent curator, published an article on the long process that led to the presentation of his project Sous le vernis (Vie des arts no. 264). The artist is represented by Art Mûr gallery, and his work can be found in many public and private collections.