Patrick Beaulieu
Poussières de forêt (Révélations) 2
2009

Name: Poussières de forêt (Révélations) 2
Brand: Patrick Beaulieu
Price: 3850 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Patrick Beaulieu’s most recent project Révélations uses installation and digital prints to explore how artistic manipulation can create shifts in one’s expectations of the visual experience. Beaulieu clearly acknowledges his artistic presence in the work through mechanical and digital manipulation of the objects and images he presents. He becomes more than a passive observer and recorder of his physical world; the alteration of conventional photographs implants his voice and vision into the work. This approach directly addresses and contrasts artistic practices which seek to conceal the artist’s hand. His method diverges from those that attempt to present an uninterrupted and uncontaminated record, such as some documentary and straight photography. In using these stylized techniques, Beaulieu makes a palpable proclamation regarding the subjective and flexible condition of images. In Révélations, images of trees, moss, leaves and other natural objects are presented in strict colour schemes of muted grays, browns and greens. Though these colours are familiar components of the natural world that we experience in day-to-day life and in photographs of nature, the subdued and dulled palette alludes to a dark, less lively depiction of nature. Idealistic notions of bountiful and vibrant landscapes are disrupted by the sinister appearance of these plant specimens. Along with the muted shades, the images are subject to digital fragmentation and blurring. These latter two techniques function together to create disconnections between the viewer and the natural world. The landscapes are rendered into dream-like settings with sparsely recognizable elements, highlighted only by their literal clarity in a scene of motion and textured abstraction. One part may be the only in-focus area or the image may be cropped beyond recognition of the whole. These interventions make natural objects seem vaguely unfamiliar, thus disrupting typical expectations of one’s surrounding world. One is left wondering what the artist is trying to show us or what he is trying to hide. But through the blur and distortion lucid areas emerge and grasp our attention. Viewing the digital images feels like glancing at passing landscapes, driving past at high speeds or looking through textured glass. What has been missed in these brief and distorted glances? And though the images are based in temporal settings due to the literal movement in the images, there is also a past and future implied, piquing the audiences’ curiosity and begging them to move beyond the frame of the image.

Creator:

Patrick Beaulieu (1974, Canadian)

Creation Year:

2009

Dimensions:

Height: 47 in (119.38 cm)Width: 33 in (83.82 cm)

Medium:

Digital

Movement & Style:

Contemporary

Period:

2010-

Condition:

Gallery Location:

Montreal, CA

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU4763580852

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Patrick Beaulieu

Patrick Beaulieu is a multidisciplinary artist. His projects are intrinsically linked to ideas of mobility, forming a relationship to various territories by empirically addressing the question of geographical and social boundaries, and the boundary between reality and fiction. His interest in the journey and its inherent narrative has led him to focus on some of the elusive phenomena that surround us (migratory, meteorological, spiritual…), and the forces that act upon these. He has produced several bodies of work in the form of installations, videos, sculptures, photography, performances, in-situ/in-socius interventions and archives. Over the last dozen years, he has built his practice around performative excursions across North America, Europe and Asia. In 2013, Beaulieu completed a trilogy of transfrontier odysseys titled VVV, in collaboration with writers, geographers and philosophers. Together, they followed the migratory path of the monarch butterfly (Vecteur Monarque, 2007); chased the winds across America in a 25-day continental navigation (Ventury, 2010) and surrendered themselves to fate and luck on the roads of chance (Vegas, 2012). In the summer of 2014, Beaulieu embarked on a slow, month-long, meandering drift via kayak down the winding rivers that lead from southern Québec to the Atlantic Ocean, at the mouth of the Hudson River in New York (Meander). His work has been presented in several countries, most notably in solo exhibitions in the United States (Pacific Sky Exhibition); in Mexico (Centro de la Imagen), in Belgium (Experimental Intermedia), in Singapore (Plastique Kinetic Worms Art Centre Kinetic Worms Art Centre), and across Canada, including the Banff New Media Institute, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Art Gallery of Windsor, the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, the Centre Clark, the Centre d’exposition CIRCA, the Musée de Lachine, the Galerie des arts visuels de l’Université Laval, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Sherbrooke. His work is included in numerous public and private collections in Canada, the US, France and Mexico. Beaulieu has also produced many public art projects in the form of performative or relational interventions, or as permanent public art installations within architectural and landscaped environments.