To understand how local artists shape matter to extract their vision of the world, you have to meet them. Mise en lumière is a series of portraits that appear at the end of each month. Forays into the universe of creators who work on their works in an unusual way, set back from current cultural events.
Trompe-l’oeil and images that don’t look like images, Caroline Cloutier has been producing them since the beginning of her career, some ten years ago. And even before. At the time, the graduate of the bachelor’s degree in visual and media arts, at UQAM, exhibited games of “shadows and light” obtained with crumpled paper.
“These were gestures on paper. But what I was showing were photos that looked like 3D, for real, remembers the 2009 graduate. I saw the optical potential there. Afterwards, at my first exhibition [en 2012], [j’ai travaillé] false openings. »
Ten individual exhibitions later, Caroline Cloutier details, in her new studio, her practice, which was not built as a series of traps. On the contrary: rather than hiding, it reveals. “I take photos to show light”, sums up the Montrealer.
The one who defines herself as “a visual artist who does installation, photography and now drawing” writes, yes, with light, her photographer part. More than matter, light is his subject, his obsession: the term will be pronounced about forty times during the interview.
“People ask me why I don’t show my paper sculptures. [Ce que je fais, c’est] freeze a bright moment. It’s all about the light, not the object. The shapes are a pretext for plays of light,” she says.
Light, a common feature. As much as possible direct, raw, in order to exalt the contrasts, reinforce the illusions. “My false openings in the wall are just a shade of gray. They fascinate, I think, because you imagine what’s on the other side. We project ourselves, we are in our psyche. It calls into question our perception of life, ”insists the native of Amos.
Crumpled paper, kirigami-type folding and cutting, wall breakthroughs, straight lines yesterday, curves today… Caroline Cloutier’s pretexts vary from one project to another. The process itself follows a single path: making the hands in the workshop, photographic session with natural light, post-production of the image on the computer.
The colors of white
Three weeks have passed since Caroline Cloutier moved to the Sud-Ouest borough. His home upstairs, his studio, in this rather comfortable semi-basement. And surprising, when you know that the artist is looking for the sun. She doesn’t care. In the living room, upstairs, “the direct light is really strong”. Then she has a yard. ” The light rough sun, at 1:30 p.m., it’s perfect,” says the one who worked in this way during the summer of 2022, during a residency in Banff.
Capturing the best luminosity is its objective. Patience and observation, his qualities. The camera, his tool. A reflective tool like mirror and polished steel, which she has used before. His ideal studio would have lots of windows. But the new one satisfies her, because it remains accessible “as soon as I am ready to photograph”.
My false openings in the wall are just a shade of gray. They fascinate, I think, because you imagine what’s on the other side. We project ourselves, we are in our psyche. It challenges our perception of life
Without claiming Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moment, Caroline Cloutier is looking for “the luminous phenomenon”, one that “disappears very, very quickly”. “I look like this when I’m working,” she says, mimicking the positions she adopts as she seeks the best angle to exploit the incoming sun.
Everything starts, with her, from the look. If, in music, the absolute pitch is precious, in visual arts, can we speak of the absolute eye? That of Caroline Cloutier, for example.
“I see colors in white,” she says, pointing to her photos of white architectural details. “When I watched them, I saw colors appear. On the computer, she got confirmation that she was “not hallucinating.” His art is based on this anecdote: revealing what is imperceptible. “White does not exist,” concedes the woman with the non-bionic eye.
Free workshop
The one who made a name for herself with installations in shades of gray (and white) is gradually turning to color. The blue appeared, thanks to the use of a filter, during a residency at the Guido Molinari Foundation. Colored glasses added to Banff. The pastel arose in 2023, during a retreat in the Californian desert. Since then, it’s been his head — and his hands. She draws colored shapes with her palm, which she then photographs.
The result, obtained after digital cutting, was exhibited this spring, first at the Plural fair, then in Toronto, where its Montreal gallery owner, Nicolas Robert, manages a second space. And it’s not finished.
On his worktable, on a wall, almost everywhere, we find traces of a suddenly colored world and of the series of works still in progress. “It was black and white, high contrast and… bang! It springs, full of colors, says Caroline Cloutier. In the white, all the colors are contained, there, I deploy them. »
The Californian stay pushed her into a reflection on life and its cycles, as well as towards an aesthetic change: instead of architectural evocation — a “very stiff geometry” — she targets curved, organic, fluid forms. The color-roundness combination seems infinite to him.
“I’m interested in sacred geometry, she confides, where each form has a dominant color, with different vibrations. It’s still abstract, but curved shapes are found in nature, like cells or stars. They talk about life. It works with my subject, natural light. The light [surgit], because we revolve around the sun. »
His practice does not go around in circles. As long as she has a workshop where she can set foot on endless exploration. The new designer plunges into a meditative ritual, follows her instinct, lets forms emerge, without thinking about the final result. “I’m going in one direction, without explaining it to myself. I am not rational. I reason afterwards, in postproduction, and throw away a lot of stuff. But the studio is freedom. »