Trois-Rivières artist Gab More is only 24 years old and he is making a name for himself with his paintings hard edge science fiction style, half-figurative, half-abstract. A style born in Cégep when he juggled with geometric figures and added effects with the help of software before reproducing everything on a canvas. As his teacher Jérémie Deschamps Bussières did, and as the American Austin Lee also does.
After exhibiting at Concordia’s VAV gallery in 2018 and then at Nuit blanche, Gab More entered an international competition organized in 2019 on the occasion of the centenary of Pébéo, the creator of colors for the fine arts. One hundred works by one hundred artists from one hundred countries were chosen to exhibit at the Menier Gallery in London. A work by Gab More was selected. This first international exhibition and her presence on Instagram allowed her to make fruitful contacts with agents and art dealers.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE ARTIST
Big Bird in a Small Cagethe 24 x 36 inch acrylic presented by Gab More at the Pébéo competition
“Two art dealers from London discovered my work, contacted me and offered a two-year contract, which led me to a first collective exhibition in 2021 with the JPS gallery in Tokyo, he says. . The JPS gallery also has offices in Hong Kong, Paris and Barcelona. As it went well – the two works I exhibited were sold – the gallery invited me to a second collective, last October in Hong Kong, before offering me my first solo in Tokyo, in December last, with nine canvases. »
Gab More does not sell large canvases in Asia. Even though collectors have big pockets there, they usually don’t have a lot of space, he says, adding that the prices of his works have risen rapidly, from C$300 in 2020 to between 2000 and US$3000 today in Asian market. The artist traveled to Tokyo in early December to present his solo and meet the local art community. “I also asked for some help from the federal and provincial governments, because it’s a business trip,” he says.
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View of his solo exhibition in Tokyo
Gab More studied at Concordia from 2018 to 2021, including two years online due to the pandemic. He had chosen the Studio Arts concentration. “Because Concordia has quality equipment for digital arts,” he says. But why does he paint instead of selling digital art directly? “I’m interested in post-internet culture, but also in images,” he replies. And how the iconography has changed with the arrival of the internet, how we had access to an infinity of images. Painting gives images a different aura from the aura of images seen on a screen. »
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE ARTIST
Instant Crush2021, oil and acrylic on canvas,
36 x 48 inches
Gab More is not interested in the NFT market.
This is the opposite of what I want to develop. The concept of the digital image as being a reproduction that nothing distinguishes and which corresponds above all to the medium that is the NFT more than to the image of the work, that does not interest me.
Gabriel Moreau
A canvas takes him four to five days of work, after his periods of sketching on the computer. Does his style evolve? “Visually, it looks like I’ve been in the same style for five years, but I’ve progressed. I refine what I do. It goes with the technologies that I use. There is a negative connotation in the art world to staying in the same style, but in the world of selling art, it’s very positive! I’m still exploring different things while maintaining my unique identity. »
Gab More is beginning to catch the eye of some Quebec collectors. It reassures him. “I wouldn’t want to be the artist of just one market,” he says. Even though I started with Tokyo and Hong Kong, I also want to go to Paris and Barcelona, push to London and Montreal, and even New York if I’m able. But I’m going to go one show at a time! »