Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 4

Michel Piquette
Nuit Blanche à Tokyo

2015

About the Item

It is the luminous colours of Michel Piquette’s works that first catch the eye. His chromatic circles that stir up vision take root in an aesthetic tradition a few decades old already: we can think of Claude Tousignant’s or Kenneth Nolan’s circular paintings, among others. For Boris Chukhovich, “chromatic interactions make the exhibition space between the work and the viewer more dynamic, livelier.” While one progresses in the gallery’s space, the work reveals new details, new ways of viewing it. Even by standing still, it is the work that activates itself under the attentive eyes of the viewer. By yielding an energetic relation between the work and its public, Piquette snatches the attention of the viewer and embarks them in a game of optics. If upon first glance these works appear impeccable, of an irreproachable artistic achievement that we could associate to Les Plasticiens, a closer look reveals imperfections that humanize the general composition and register the hand of the artist. This is particularly surprising considering that Piquette’s creative approach, while borrowing from a certain visual vocabulary, is translated through photography, not painting. Printed on aluminum, Piquette’s photographs seek to fix the energy of a city captured in a concise moment: the city’s exhilarating movement, its complexity, its lights as much as its colours. All taken during various nocturnal journeys, the works in this series are urban portraits that make up the first part of the artist’s trilogy initiated a few years ago. In Piquette’s work, there is a recurring concern with optical phenomena that the artist chooses to convey by drawing a relation between the worlds of painting and photography. The static dynamism of his work reveals his position as an observer, of his eager eye in front of the movements and lights of the cities he visits at nighttime. By redistributing the urban energy he captures during his after-hours wanderings into visual structures all equally disorienting, Piquette reinstates in the current artistic vocabulary visual preoccupations that carry a rich background. Many aesthetic considerations are combined in this work. We can think of the urban landscape at the source of his creative process, of time which he places as the subject of his work or of the chromatic system, simultaneously his primary influence and the result of his technical manipulations. This richness is precisely where the strength of Piquettes’ work resides. By juxtaposing on a same surface a plurality of levels of meaning, the artist grasps the complexity of contemporary urban spheres, their affluence and abundance. In a manner evocative of Baudelaire’s chiffonnier, Piquette’s is an urban observer that reinvests the space of the city to capture nothing but its essence.
  • Creator:
    Michel Piquette (Canadian)
  • Creation Year:
    2015
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 48 in (121.92 cm)Width: 48 in (121.92 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Montreal, CA
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU4761713003

More From This Seller

View All
Nuit Blanche à Tel Aviv
By Michel Piquette
Located in Montreal, Quebec
It is the luminous colours of Michel Piquette’s works that first catch the eye. His chromatic circles that stir up vision take root in an aesthetic tradition a few decades old alread...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Prints

Materials

Aluminum

Nuit Blanche à Delhi
By Michel Piquette
Located in Montreal, Quebec
It is the luminous colours of Michel Piquette’s works that first catch the eye. His chromatic circles that stir up vision take root in an aesthetic tradition a few decades old alread...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Prints

Materials

Archival Paper, Digital

Nuit Blanche à Barcelone 2
By Michel Piquette
Located in Montreal, Quebec
It is the luminous colours of Michel Piquette’s works that first catch the eye. His chromatic circles that stir up vision take root in an aesthetic tr...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Prints

Materials

Paper, Digital

Nuit Blanche à Jérusalem
By Michel Piquette
Located in Montreal, Quebec
It is the luminous colours of Michel Piquette’s works that first catch the eye. His chromatic circles that stir up vision take root in an aesthetic tr...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Prints

Materials

Aluminum

Nuit blanche à Amman
By Michel Piquette
Located in Montreal, Quebec
It is the luminous colours of Michel Piquette’s works that first catch the eye. His chromatic circles that stir up vision take root in an aesthetic tradition a few decades old alread...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Prints

Materials

Digital

Nuit Blanche à Dubai
By Michel Piquette
Located in Montreal, Quebec
It is the luminous colours of Michel Piquette’s works that first catch the eye. His chromatic circles that stir up vision take root in an aesthetic tradition a few decades old alread...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Prints

Materials

Archival Paper, Digital

You May Also Like

Mario Klinger, 4 Beings, 2005, Edition 1
Located in Greding, DE
Lambdaprint "4 Beings" behind glass on aluminum, edition 1. single size: 150 x 43 cm.
Category

Early 2000s Abstract More Art

Materials

Lambda

Mario Klinger, N4 9192 (from "Reality of the Real"), 2020
Located in Greding, DE
Large format lambda print framed behind glass "N4 9192" from the series "Reality of the Real" of 2020. edition 2. Picture Size: 210 x 147 cm.
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Prints

Materials

Glass, Lambda

"Untitled #294 " watercolor print on fine art paper
Located in West Hollywood, CA
Over the past 20 years, Michelle Oppenheimer has become well known for composing paintings that capture the imaginative and organic possibilities of abstract watercolor and acrylic. ...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Prints

Materials

Paper, Inkjet

"Untitled #368 " watercolor print on fine art paper
Located in West Hollywood, CA
Over the past 20 years, Michelle Oppenheimer has become well known for composing paintings that capture the imaginative and organic possibilities of abstract watercolor and acrylic. ...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Prints

Materials

Paper, Inkjet

"Untitled #377 " watercolor print on fine art paper
Located in West Hollywood, CA
Over the past 20 years, Michelle Oppenheimer has become well known for composing paintings that capture the imaginative and organic possibilities of abstract watercolor and acrylic. ...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Prints

Materials

Paper, Inkjet

"Untitled #197 " watercolor print on fine art paper
Located in West Hollywood, CA
Over the past 20 years, Michelle Oppenheimer has become well known for composing paintings that capture the imaginative and organic possibilities of abstract watercolor and acrylic. ...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Prints

Materials

Paper, Inkjet

Recently Viewed

View All