Let’s call him “Mr Bonhomme-Sourire”.
Posted yesterday at 11:00 a.m.
It’s that he doesn’t want me to name him. Since he navigates a fine line between creation and crime, he prefers that I not give clues that would identify him. No worries, I have no desire to denounce a street artist, anyway.
Especially not a creator who lines the walls with affection…
Because that’s what Monsieur Bonhomme-Sourire does. He invests neighborhoods where the light forgets to pass to plaster images of hope. Positive words. Jokes.
I see his billboards everywhere in Montreal, I sometimes even come across them in other regions of the province… Often on structures that seem unreachable to me. I don’t know how he gets there. His outbursts really do impress.
In any case, it’s always good to discover his illustrations. It is perhaps even more so in this pandemic February, with the sanitary measures, the fatigue and the days we spend slaloming between our desires for a nap and those for everything to crunch there…
(It’s not just me, huh? Tell me it’s not just me…)
It is also to get out of a state of great depression that Mr. Bonhomme-Sourire began to affix benevolent images on the walls of Quebec, about 15 years ago.
“I hit rock bottom quite a bit,” he explained to me. Then I had an epiphany! »
I told myself that if I started showing hope, I would end up believing in it too. I started putting signs everywhere, I was like crazy…
Mr Bonhomme-Smile
Autosuggestion worked. Hope, by dint of plastering it, he ended up tasting it. Since then, Monsieur Bonhomme-Sourire likes to say that he does not ask permission to share love. Hence the flirtation with illegality I was telling you about earlier.
But basically, who really owns the public space?
* * *
These days, Mr. Bonhomme-Sourire develops works in collaboration with aid organizations, a question of delighting the world to whom life does not pass on the palette. His approach is making its way into the community, it’s new, it stimulates him a lot.
And there are the sculptures.
The artist does not give only in the panels, he also creates installations from recycled materials. Last summer, he put together an old clothes rack, a snowblower auger, gazebo scraps and the tip of a street lamp. All stuff found in the garbage. Results ? A man, arms open, whose fingers indicate “I love you” in sign language.
“I decided to put it on top of a hill, like it was spreading love. »
I don’t know if it spreads love, but one thing is certain, creation inherits quite a lot of it.
The other day, Monsieur Bonhomme-Sourire received a private message on Instagram. A mother explained to him that her children loved sculpture. Besides, they were a little worried about her; what if she was cold, with the temperatures dropping? Would the artist accept that his man wears a scarf? If so, they were ready to prepare it for the big storms…
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Valérie Doucet and her two children, Louis and Léa Ducharme, in front of the sculpture.
“We’ve been seeing Mr. Bonhomme-Sourire’s billboards for a long time, everywhere in town,” says Valérie Doucet, mother of Léa (10 years old) and Louis (8 years old). It was a game to find them, as a family! It was Léa who saw the sculpture first. Immediately, the children asked me to go and see her more closely. My son is super sensitive to art. He wanted to approach it, observe it, understand how it was made. We were asking questions. Is it a robot? Is it an alien? »
Finally, without ruling on its exact nature, the trio decided to name the sculpture Amour. Every morning, he goes to say “Hi, Love! “. A small gesture that brought the family a lot closer together, Valérie Doucet tells me…
When her children came up with the idea of dressing Amour for the winter, the young mother was thrilled, but she felt it was important to first obtain permission from her creator. She didn’t want to distort her intention or her approach…
Of course, the offer was accepted.
Mr. Bonhomme-Sourire was even very touched by it: “I’m so happy that the people of the neighborhood are appropriating the sculpture, that they don’t see it as something negative! Like any good artist, I am sensitive to the environment around me and I want to embellish it. I know it’s subjective and that people find garbage cans ugly… But I find it beautiful, taking obsolete objects and giving them a new life. »
So, is it ok if ever other children want to put a scarf on your creations?
He laughed before throwing me: “Let them put two, if they want! And that they take their picture with them, because I want to see the result! »
In fact, according to the creator, it’s a perfect way to appropriate public art. While some people steal the collages, panels and sculptures offered to the community by street artists, Mr. Bonhomme-Sourire pleads for us to learn to play with the creations, rather than trying to make them our own.
The kids figured out how to get there.
All this to tell you that right now, there is an artist whose mission is to help hope break through February. Then a young family decided to help her keep that hope warm…
There’s something infinitely reassuring about that, isn’t there?
(It’s not just me, huh? Tell me it’s not just me…)