Lighthouse on the river | The urban fable of René Derouin

REM passengers who come and go between Montreal and the South Shore have become spectators of the Lighthouse on the river, this magnificent fresco integrated into the 500 balconies of a Griffintown complex. Let’s hope that they sometimes look up at the flowers, birds and fish in René Derouin’s fable.

“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.

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.

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.

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.