The Outpourings

François Lacasse

Curated by Marie-Eve Beaupré

The Outpourings is a retrospective covering the last twenty years of painter François Lacasse's work. The exhibition brings together thirty works, which shed light on the whole of the artists' career and on the progressive transformation of his approach.

The layout of the exhibition The Outpourings is divided into three main theme-based sections that demonstrate how Lacasse's work has evolved. The first group presents seven paintings between 1988 and 1998 and highlights the point at which the artist began to move from figuration and quotation towards an investigation into more formal aspects of painting. 

The second section features his experiments with opacity and transparency, masses and spaces, leading him to change his way of applying colour. He developed a technique whereby the consistency of the pigment transformed the act of painting, bringing it closer to the material itself.

The third and final section comprises some twelve paintings, executed between 2005 and 2008. In these works a perceptible and even palpable dimension, that of time, is added to the application of the colour. The plastic energy of these paintings created by pouring the pigment on to the canvas, springs from the systematic superimposition of numerous layers of paint that form broad meandering bands of nuanced colour.

For the past two decades Lacasse's research into the plastic potential of the material and the optical effects of colour has been based on observation and experimentation. Through the selection of works on display and the spatial layout designed by the curator Marie-Eve Beaupré, this retrospective offers visitors an overall view of the oeuvre of Lacasse, one of Quebec's foremost artists. 

This travelling exhibition is organized and circulated by the Musée d'art de Joliette with the support of Canadian Heritage, and has travelled to the Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, an Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery, Halifax.