“I was really excited by the audacity of this project,” confides René Derouin, in the middle of the balconies where four of his mural works are reproduced, in a building complex. “It’s one of the projects that required the most thought from me,” says the artist, who has nevertheless seen others. It made me evolve in my work, it influenced me. Because in that, there’s a lot of what I’ve done elsewhere before. »
The four murals are displayed on the facades. Each has its own landscape, but the story is the same. We talk about the river, its inhabitants and their migration. Each of the owners has a unique work and a unique point of view on the project.
When you are alone in your condo, there is only you facing what is presented to you. It’s like having a painting in your home.
The artist René Derouin
A lighthouse on the river required a colossal amount of work. The artist first created the work on paper, then it was cut into 2,247 small pieces of tempered glass, approximately 4×4 feet. Each of the glass panels contains a part of the story.
“We made sure to find a way to ensure that the work did not deteriorate, that it was printed in the glass,” explains Marco Fontaine, vice-president of residential development and marketing for real estate developer Devimco. Mr. Fontaine was part of the jury which chose the work a few years ago.
A lighthouse on the river
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PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
“There are several levels to a project like this,” says the artist. It is collective, in urban space. »
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PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
“I really wanted to win this competition,” confides René Derouin, on a balcony of the complex. The octogenarian artist specifies that there were younger people who also participated in this public art competition. Devimco had asked a few artists to present projects.
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PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
Part of the work is only visible to residents, but the majority is on sides facing neighboring streets or the REM rails. We can also see the images very well on the balconies from the Peel Basin and the Bonaventure Expressway.
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PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
René Derouin explains that the design was complex, because there were several very precise specifications in the request, including the representation, in some way, of the founding peoples of Montreal.
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Although it was sweet like a children’s story, some clients were not thrilled to have part of the fresco integrated into their balcony. Marco Fontaine explains that owners feared that they would lose brightness, which is not really the case. On the contrary, animals and flowers give residents a (little) bit of privacy.
An elusive flora
René Derouin designed this work in Mexico. There is a studio that he visits every year and it is there that he developed his work, which is a tribute to Nordicity and Laurentian flora by Marie-Victorin.
“I knew the brother who drew the whole Laurentian florain the 1950s,” explains the artist who lives in the Laurentians and who has worked with nature for decades.
I am especially interested in the graphic aspect of plants.
The artist René Derouin
From the bottom up, life awakens. Starting first with the earth, up to the sky, with birds flying away.
“I am a narrative artist,” René Derouin tells us in the middle of the interior courtyard of the complex, where two facades face each other, responding to each other. The artist is kind to clarify what is quite obvious: his Headlight unfolds like a story that he tells us and that we appropriate, but which remains partly elusive since unless we put a lot of time and effort into it, it is impossible to see the entirety of the story. work, presented on four facades of 21 floors.
Who is René Derouin?
- Born in 1936 in Montreal, René Derouin is a multidisciplinary artist who lives in Val-David, where he founded Les Jardins du précambrien.
- He became familiar with mural art in the 1950s. He maintains that his works are inhabited by those that preceded them.
- The artist will be in Kyoto next January, for an exhibition with four Canadian artists.