In Jérémie St-Pierre’s workshop | The painter on the lookout

After exhibiting in Miami, Toronto, Quebec and Montreal, at the age of 40, the painter Jérémie St-Pierre will be entitled, from February 8 to April 21, to a solo at the Sherbrooke Museum of Fine Arts. At the same time his first work of public art will be inaugurated in the same city. We went to Estrie to visit the workshop of this artist with a non-conformist outlook.

Disfigurement

Jérémie St-Pierre is a fan of disfigurement. He explains that he was moved to tears in front of a painting by Francis Bacon at the MOMA in New York. He delights in the pictorial explorations of artists like Adrien Ghenie, Justin Mortimer or Leon Golub, whose painting Mercenaries II “knocked him to the ground” when he discovered it at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

A gifted draftsman in his youth, he moved from charcoal to acrylic and figuration after classes with the artist Michel Bricault at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM). A fan of the anthropologist René Girard, the sociologist Denys Delagence and the philosophers Merleau-Ponty and Gilles Deleuze, a great enthusiast of current affairs, he is an artist on the lookout. He absorbs information, archives photographs and press clippings and brings back images from his walks in nature before taking action on the canvas in his expressionist style.

Fascinated by the figure of the scapegoat (subject of his very interesting master’s thesis), he evoked the migration and climate crises in his paintings. He is interested in the erasure, the dilapidation of life: ruins, abandoned houses, endangered animals, and our propensity to throw away, to waste, to disfigure.

A multidisciplinary artist, he performed and created installations with his partner, landscape architect Valériane Noël, at the Portneuf International Linen Biennale and during artistic events in the Sherbrooke region. Gallerist Hugues Charbonneau appreciated his work and allowed him to exhibit at the Scope fair in Miami in 2016. He was then represented by Quebec gallery owner Michel Guimont until the latter closed his premises in 2022.

The workshop

Originally from the village of Sainte-Félicité-de-L’Islet, in Chaudière-Appalaches, Jérémie St-Pierre went to study and live in Montreal before settling in 2017, with his partner and their two daughters, in a small house of Val-Joli, a splendid little corner north of Sherbrooke. He set up his workshop in a building separated from their house by a small bridge which passes over a stream. The place is bucolic and relaxing.

This is where he creates his paintings with a multi-step process. Selection of images from one’s archives or from one’s wanderings, creation of collages/montages resulting from the chosen concept, processing of the image on a computer to disfigure and rearrange the composition. Then comes the sketch, then the free stage of painting to produce exploded works, partly gestural. “I enjoy every step of the way,” he says. But I am also an artist who doubts. Never satisfied ! Doubting is necessary. »

Exhibition in Sherbrooke

When we met him, his studio was filled with paintings (several large format) that he will exhibit at the Sherbrooke Museum of Fine Arts. For this solo, he chose a new approach for him. He was indeed inspired by a moving poem sent to him by his poet friend Vicky Gendreau, who died in 2013, and which he discovered by chance in 2019. His paintings thus arise from personal memories.

Dedicated to memory, the exhibition is entitled A magnificent desolation. Visitors will be able to read Vicky Gendreau’s poem, leave written messages and even traces of their footsteps. But also use their smartphone to see the paintings with their colors reversed. An interesting virtual experience, because his paintings are often in unreal and hallucinatory shades, notably his mauves and turquoise blues. Colors that evoke our schizophrenic world. “The exhibition is also a tribute to literature,” he said. A bit like I had put it together with Vicky. And my paintings are more expressive than before. »

Rock Forest and the future

Jérémie St-Pierre won a competition set up to integrate a work of art into the Rock Forest Recreation Center in Sherbrooke. Made up of two aluminum circles, Enter the game! will be inaugurated next month. The project was carried out as part of the 58^e final of the Quebec Games, which will take place in Sherbrooke in March. Taking a playful look at the game, he collaborated with children from a daycare and an elementary school, as well as with an organization caring for immigrant families. “I used the drawings they made on the theme of sport. I juxtaposed them with silhouettes of athletes. I decided to give these schools and the organization 1% of the grant from this project, so that art and culture develop there. And to invest in my community. »

Lecturer at the University of Sherbrooke since 2020, Jérémie St-Pierre is satisfied with his progress. “I would never have seen myself there 10 years ago,” he said. I find it easier to create. My grant from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec for setting up the exhibition and my Rock Forest project helped me financially. I was able to buy equipment. When I use black, I put lots of it on my palette! I no longer have to use my old paint bases! As soon as the exhibition is over, I will create a new body of work on a new theme. Until I’m dying, I’m going to paint! I am so happy in Val-Joli. It’s a return to childhood. I escape into the woods and I create. »

In images, in pictures

Some works by Jérémie St-Pierre

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