Tell people that you're an artist who works in pastels, and watch their faces fall--blame it on the fact that some media still suffer from the hierarchy of legitimacy. Though pastels rank somewhere below finger-painting, inevitably someone had to come along and make people think twice about the medium. Claude Bouchard is just such a one. His show, Personne, at the Icari space, consists of a series of large -scale pastel drawings.
The theme of the show is portraiture, although you couldn't tell by looking at the drawings. They're all abstracts; fields and mists of vivid colour play along the paper's surface, sometimes barely suggesting a figure. Some are accompanied by leather gloves, or other apparel. Each drawing is titled after a famous figure, like Simone de Beauvoir or Maria Callas. Bouchard, expertly using pastel's full capabilities, does an incredible job of invoking the dead: his ethereal gloved drawings evoke an eerie, beautiful presence. At 55 Mont-Royal W. # 500, until Nov. 2.
Tell people that you're an artist who works in pastels, and watch their faces fall--blame it on the fact that some media still suffer from the hierarchy of legitimacy. Though pastels rank somewhere below finger-painting, inevitably someone had to come along and make people think twice about the medium. Claude Bouchard is just such a one. His show, Personne, at the Icari space, consists of a series of large -scale pastel drawings.