Yvon Benoit, Montréal, Canada
Member Since January 2007
Artist Statement birth in 1955 in a popular district of Montreal
The winter in the city and the summer in the country until the move in suburb.
A new way of living. Everything development can give and more. Moderns schools for exemple, where there is a wind of reform, the sciences, the arts are now taught in laboratories, studio and rehearsal rooms well equipped. Here we are, it is exactly at this moment when my bad habit to doodle pass of reprehensible activity in " the expression of my creativity ". A disaster. I did completed my secondary studies with great difficulty for finally accede to art classes at college. Re-disaster. I had the bad idea to become an active member at Graff print workshop. As a consequence, I abandon the studies and dedicate myself to the elaboration of my silkscreen technique. Rere-disaster. There was a technique for shur, but at the service of a tiny life experience. I thanked everybody for having received me and I did explained to them the necessity that I had to have a look out there and grow up a little. Four continents, deserts of rocks, of sand, of ice, mountains, forests, oceans, cities, mega-cities, villages, hamlets. More than thirty years now, I continue to fill my backpack with the life and did always continue to draw. The paper table mats darkened by my scrawls became finely-worked high quality papers that I accumulate in a corner. What to do with these thousand and one stories?
To show them is one of the answers.
...................
The way it go.
It is with my hands that I dig rectagular surfaces that always seem too small. There is two spaces that I explore: the paper sheet and the computer screen. Continuous gestures leaves traces on paper which gradually build forms. It is a one way movement , nothing is erased. It is not illustrating words or texts. I really have the impression to be a spectator of a slow revelation . Concretely the pigments pile up, but what I see it is the white of the surface of the paper which dissolves while letting appear a world. It astonishes me and I am extremely curious to see what there is on other papers. The computer this is a another case. First I work on a touch screen, the gesture to draw is the same one. Attention it is not a pencil or a paintbrush which one holds in the hand, but a magic wand. It has the power of metamorphosing itself and can bring us in surprising territories. Secondly the machine is a space where all we put do cohabits. The game that I enjoy very much is to put together graphic ideas (sketch) on great virtual canevas. That is acting, that is confronting, (“that” is an entity which works and seems to know where to aim, me I am the facilitator.) gradually each element are defined , create their spaces and weave a network of interactions with the rest of the page. From the great variations of the beginning where everything is moving, the proportions, the textures, the colors gradually are solidifying to create an image which carries its own cohesion. A changing narration that depend on the route followed by our eyes.
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