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.
“I am very patient,” observes artist and professor Thomas Corriveau during a visit to the Duty at his workshop. It’s the least we can say. On each wall of the room are affixed dozens of small numbered paintings. Together they constitute the sequences of his animated films, where each image is painted individually, in acrylic. A monk’s work.
Recently retired from UQAM after 21 years of teaching, he devotes more time than ever to his career as an artist. While his latest short film, Marie · Eduardo · Sophieis completing his festival tour — including Annecy and the Montreal International Art Film Festival — Thomas Corriveau is already working on his next one, the first that he is having produced and distributed externally.
Since Kidnapped, I have developed an interest in collage and ana-morphosis. I want my works to move depending on the viewer’s position. Thomas Corriveau »
When he welcomes us, images from the film, which will be called Sophie in the forest, are projected on a wall of the workshop. The filmmaker takes the opportunity to explain to us that he practices rotoscoping, a technique which consists of painting or drawing, frame by frame, on filmed shots. He therefore projects his filmed images onto a canvas, in this case a sheet of paper, which he pins on his wall. “Rotoscoping can sometimes seem mechanical, but I try to make it as lively as possible by letting the traces of my work show through in the image, while remaining methodical. »
The combination of camera movements and character movements in space proves particularly difficult to master, he says. “I feel very lucky to have been trained in science at CEGEP and to have taken perspective courses at a fairly young age. It allowed me, from the first film I made, at the baccalaureate, to create movement effects using protractors and to transpose architect’s plans onto my drawings. »
Collage and anamorphosis
It was indeed his bachelor’s degree in fine arts at Concordia — followed by a master’s degree at the same university — that revealed him to the cinema. Since then, he has continued to explore different techniques, from painting to video installation, including photography and screen printing, while occasionally returning to animation. His works have been the subject of dozens of exhibitions and his films have won numerous awards.
“My master’s degree led me to direct the film Kidnapped, which is probably the most important work of my career and which inspired several of my subsequent projects. As much as the form [alliant coupures de magazines, peinture et prises de vue réelles] that the story are conceived as a collage, where the stories of a victim and the perpetrator of a crime are intertwined. »
After a premiere at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 1988 as part of the exhibition Hot times, Kidnapped was integrated into the Museum’s collection, then revisited in the form of an installation for the exhibition Around memory and the archive in 1999. These days, the Cinémathèque québécoise is presenting a new restoration of the film on international tour, including a screening at the Canadian Cultural Center in Paris in early December.
The installation version of Kidnapped testifies to Thomas Corriveau’s desire to “extend the work through spatial arrangement”. “For me, the viewer’s contact with the images is as important, if not more, than what the images represent. From Kidnapped, I developed an interest in collage and anamorphosis. I want my works to move depending on the viewer’s position. It is also in this spirit that I turned to cinema: so that my paintings come alive, literally. »
Scenography
His art has even come to life on stage, on a few occasions, notably for the adaptation of For a yes or for a no by Nathalie Sarraute, presented at the Prospero theater in 2013. Thomas Corriveau also enjoys his collaborations with dancers, including his sister Sophie Corriveau, with whom he produced projections for his solo show Until silence (2011) as well as his most recent film, Marie · Eduardo · Sophie (2022).
Could there be artistic genes in the family? “Certainly,” he replies. Her mother, Monique Corriveau, was a well-known children’s author, and several members of her large siblings of ten children turned to creative environments. “From a very young age, my mother would invite artist friends over to the house for drawing competitions, or let me paint on my own for hours. I was immersed in an artistic universe throughout my childhood. »
His family even inspired some of his works, such as his series of linocuts, 1967. During that same year, ten years after the artist’s birth, his father, a notary, took photos of every child in the family. Thomas Corriveau then made linocuts from each photo. “I punched small holes on a plate, which I then connected one by one to form drawings that represent each child. It is an engraving that is intended to reflect my approach: sensitive in terms of drawing, but systematic in the work. »
These are the same words he uses to describe his approach to rotoscoping, as he shows us his technique, sitting on his stool, painstakingly painting on a projection. “A single scene can lead me to create hundreds of drawings. It is therefore important to be both systematic and to keep in mind the idea and the emotion behind the work. But I’m not so much trying to portray intense emotion in painting as thinking about representation and finding sensitive ways to do it. »