To understand how local artists shape the material to extract their vision of the world, you have to meet them. Spotlight is a series of portraits that appears every end of the month. Forays into the world of creators who work on their works in unusual ways, away from current cultural events.
“We are invaded by sexist advertisements, there are female bodies everywhere, pornography and hypersexualization are omnipresent, but when you put a naked body that does not necessarily correspond to the norms, it is disturbing,” points out the artist Catherine Morin, who, accompanied by her energetic dog Simone, welcomes us to her home, in her house-workshop in Rosemont. When she exhibits her colorful paintings, often representing naked bodies that are as burlesque as they are realistic, she receives a whole range of reactions. “There are people who are moved by it, who are made to laugh, but there are also people who are shocked and disturbed in a certain way,” she says, emphasizing in passing the paradox of our time. “I take it a bit as a joke to be able to laugh at the kind of ambient puritanism,” adds the painter.
According to her, people wrongly think that showing a raw and stripped body must necessarily be associated with obscenity. But the explanation lies elsewhere. “We all have a body. It’s a vessel and at the same time, it’s a prison, but a body is not necessarily sexual. » She has to admit that her contemporaries are quite prudish… “It’s beautiful, it’s shapes and it reflects the light. It’s just aesthetic, there’s nothing sexual about it,” she says. She continues: “That’s why I have fun going around the breasts or the genitals in a somewhat caricatured way. When I try to hide them, they are even more there, like in 3D, and they stand out more! » enthuses the artist who regrets the cruder, even “extreme” works of previous centuries. “Today, I have the impression that there is a kind of modesty that I still find interesting, fascinating and strange,” she explains.
If naked humans are legion in her work, animals do not escape Catherine Morin’s biting features. “Sometimes, I give them genders because it’s there, it exists. We must not hide it,” says the woman who has photographed and painted nudes since adolescence. “It’s just part of me. »
Bodies we don’t see
In addition, painting naked bodies allows Catherine Morin to confront differences, this other thing which is not considered by the majority “as necessarily beautiful”, that is, bodies that are sometimes aging, sometimes “more covered”. Women’s bodies in all their diversity. “If you see an older woman in a film, it’s a horror film,” she points out, startled. It doesn’t help us, because we’re all going to go through it, but we generally try to hide it. » By painting these singular bodies, she hopes that she will perhaps encourage others to take a new look at them. “Even for myself, by observing them, I can understand them and I anticipate, I face a reality that will happen to me,” says the artist.
While she has always felt like she belonged to the “manual” portion of the population, Catherine Morin also claims to paint bodies to better criticize a society that especially values the educational path. “At home, there wasn’t much education. My mother and stepfather didn’t finish high school and I wasn’t really pushed to study. It was more “work, earn your living”,” recalls the painter who, at only 17 years old, was independent in an apartment. “It was really a complex, because we are sold the idea that if you want, you can. And if you don’t do it, it’s because you’re less than nothing, she adds. I didn’t feel like I had the capacity to study, so am I still worth anything? »
Painting banality is therefore close to her heart and Catherine Morin likes to shed light on these invisible people, those who “do” with their hands. “I try to make them demigods, a bit like Velazquez was able to paint dwarves or his black assistant [Juan de Pareja] to highlight them in her time,” she says. The artist also deplores this automatism: “When you meet someone, you ask them what their name is, their job. As if the entire entity of the person was based on what they do in life, but everything else, their values, their passions, their achievements, that takes the edge and it’s not important. » In order to compensate for this reduction into silence, Catherine Morin enjoys playing with multiple dualities in her work. “I sometimes paint slightly crooked fingers and, at the same time, smiles. It’s gentle and it’s also violent,” she warns.
But are these real smiles or are they forced? “I like the feeling of contradiction, you think it’s one thing and ultimately, it’s another,” replies Catherine Morin, who, thanks to her confident brushstrokes, likes the idea of moving from one extreme to another. “I always make back and forth in my paintings. I paint the faces quickly, I blur them and it strangely gives a realistic appearance, like a photographic blur, says the artist.
This little je ne sais quoi piques curiosity all the more. “If there is something realistic in the face, I can allow myself more then,” she mentions.
Catherine Morin’s gaming experience has no limits. “All these constraints push me to do unreal things. » According to the artist, painting an image faithfully can be reassuring, but prevents the accidents and errors that make his paintings particularly striking. “I try to listen to myself and do what speaks to me at the moment,” she confides. Faced with his paintings, which are often absolutely funny, it is ultimately difficult to remain unmoved.