Portraits
Pat Cantin’s subject is abstract, semi-figurative. The artist works as much with oil, aerosol and acrylic in each of his paintings. Each medium brings a different essence to the work and allows us to go further in the expression of his art.
“I paint directly with my hands on the canvas. I like to feel the material slipping through my fingers and sculpting it afterwards, at my leisure. Through a tool like a brush or spatula doesn’t allow me to have total control over my gesture.”
The challenge is to feel the emotion of the character other than through facial features or direct expression. The viewer must do the exercise of looking elsewhere in the work to find his usual cues. The interpretation of the portrait is perceived very differently from person to person.
The chairs
The trace left on the objects of our environment is invisible but very real. Each of us unknowingly leave a piece of ourselves. I focus on the most common object of our lives; the metal chair, used everywhere and in all circumstances. We put many things on them, our body of course, but above all a load or even an emotional overload.
I demonstrate through my chairs that everyone has a direct impact on those around them. Every word, every gesture someone makes to another influence that we are. The chair here becomes a mediator to make us understand visually what the traces left by others on oneself can do, positively as negatively.
My installations and my works make palpable by our senses, the overload accumulated by these chairs. I make them talk, will you hear them?
Biography
Patrice (Pat) Cantin was born in Jonquière on November 27, 1978. He graduated in photography and painting from the CÉGEP de Jonquière, he studied visual and media arts at the University of Quebec in Chicoutimi, then at the University of Quebec in Montreal, where he earned his bachelor’s degree He explores the interdisciplinary aspect of painting and performance, as well as painting and music.
At a very young age, Cantin remembers that he drew … Everywhere. “I drew: in my locker at school, my notebooks, my diaries, my skateboards.” An object once drawn is no longer just an object but its creation. Cantin could have had a career as a graffiti artist, but his many interests took him elsewhere.
His creative process was born in two stages. The idea of painting comes first from a composition and a color. Composition, especially for his abstract works, is often the sum of ideas accumulated over time. “I don’t take notes. The shapes, the moods, the colors, the contrasts are superimposed in my head.” The material, on the other hand, often stems from previous work on the canvas. There may be several overlays at the beginning of a painting. But it is the movement of matter that determines the rest of the work, the result of which is never predetermined.
“I love everything about creation. I have so many projects to do, it’s an obligation to get up in the morning: I have to create.”