CloutierArt

Pour peindre j’utilise n’importe quel tissus défraîchi, taies d’oreiller, nappes, draps … et dans ceux-ci, je découpe les morceaux dont j’ai besoin pour construire mes tableaux. Un jour, je me demandai ce que je pourrais faire avec les épaisses bordures cousues qui ceinturaient un vieux rideau… pouvaient-elles être peintes? Un souvenir d’une visite à Quimper me donna une idée. Dans cette petite…

Cayo Guillermo, CUBA, 2020-2021

I love waves, they are a pattern that keeps repeating even if it is never the same. And how is the painter supposed to create them? By folding the edge of an old tablecloth and give it the needed curve, or taking scissors and shaping undulations in a piece of cotton, or again, by bending a strip of cardboard and gluing it in place. Then remembering Cuba, one just paints the shapes thus created…

Exotic columns : I do not draw, I cheat! Colonnes exotiques : je ne dessine pas, je triche! 2021

ART is all about exaggeration. I do not draw, I cheat. When I look at something, architecture, a tree, a flower, the important thing is to keep what parts I like, blow them out of proportion, distort them, mix them with something else that might exist or not and forget all the rest. Using as guides drawings that I made inspired by the amazing architecture of India, I built and painted those…

Venice is pink, Venise est rose

One of the most striking feature in Venice is the Palazzo Ducale, the exterior of which is covered with many shades of white and pink marble bricks, all arranged in a wonderful lace effect. As an artist, while I work on a project, in this case, Venice, I often ask myself, “Hey François, if you had to recreate Venice, how would you do it?”… I guess that in my version of this city, the canals would…

Montréal, the Bridge, le Pont, Montréal, 2019-2021

One has amongst the best views of Montréal while crossing the Saint-Lawrence River on the Jacques-Cartier Bridge. By night the city is ablazed with thousands of colorful lights. For the driver, the attention is mostly taken by the road and the bridge itself, but if the driver is also a painter, then, the metallic structure becomes an enormous insectl-ike monster with gigantic ribs through which…

Remembering Malaga, painted corks, Souvenir de Malaga, les lièges peints 2014

Could I do something with corks I once asked myself? Painting them was my aim, but before that I cut them in halves, glued three or four parts together to form different shapes and finally I painted them in very colorful ways. Then, the kid in me could play with them in the studio, arranging the corks on small shelves, square white blocks or the likes, etc. The idea goes back years ago while…

The capital of Portugal is a city built on patterns, everywhere you look, they are there, in the tiles that cover the front of the colorful houses or in the beautiful arrangements one can see in the pavements. This city has everything a painter should wish for, including a maritime air mixed with the smell of grilled sausages. La Capitale du Portugal est une ville composée de magnifiques motifs…

Montréal, rythms, Montréal, rythmes 2014-2021

After weeks, months of almost total lack of any artistic activity, I am back in the studio, gluing together small wooden blocks first painted years ago. As always, the pleasure is in mixing them any way you want and create rythms, in this case, taking my inspiration from the cornices of Montréal. Après des mois d’arrêt, sans activité artistique, me revoilà de retour dans mon studio, collant des…

The studio, un coin d’atelier

In Canada summers are short, a few months at most, and June is already gone. While the good weather lasts, you have to take in every little happiness that comes with it, reading a book outside, taking a biking tour along the path and be surprised by a bunch of wild turkeys, gorge yourself on fresh strawberries or watch the hummingbirds at the feeder and try to find a way to outsmart the raccoon…

Little neons, Les petits néons, 1985

As long as I remembered, we always had at home an aquarium teeming with fishes, the smaller and most colorful ones being my favorites. As a kid, I watched them incessantly as they moved, their numbers creating a different composition every second. This set of blocks, is a reminder of the joy I had dreaming in front of a very colorful spectacle.

Aussi loin que je me rappelle, il y avait…

Italian shapes – Formes italiennes 1985-87

In 1983, freshly graduated from University, my dream was to see the great fresco cycles of the Renaissance that up to now, I had seen only in pictures. At the end of my summer job, I embarked on a trip to Italy but once there, even if I was delighted by Giotto and Della Francesca, it was the splendid architecture of the many medieval towns I visited that made a lasting impression on me. Inspired…

There is a series of houses on Sherbrooke Street in Montréal which have a bonanza of extravagant shapes for cornices, as if imagination was set loose within architecture. Those houses have always impressed me and I watched them for years. Then I painted them, mixing and exaggerating the shapes while adding exuberance of my own, like an old tablecloth with a floral pattern embroidered on it. Of…

I once made and unscheduled stop in Cuenca, Spain, a small town that stretches and curves itself on a hill with deep gorges all around. Strolling around, from higher ground I could see part of a rooftop covered with terracotta tiles overlooking a bending street below. As I am very much taken by repeating shapes, patterns and the like, that view was enough to inspire a strongly built painting in…

Playing with water, waves, Jeu d’Eau, les vagues, 1986

What is a wave? A shape repeating itself, diminishing or increasing in size, reflecting the sky, the clouds, being sometimes very light in colors, blue, yellow, green, and then again with the never stopping motion, to be almost black or white the next moment. Like a game, everything is always changing. This set of “Playing Blocks” is such a game, the numerous pieces of different sizes and colors…

A school of fishes, les poissons, 1985

I always loved watching a school of fishes as it is a pattern made of shapes and bold colors, always changing as the fishes move, group, regroup or if the light catches their flashy bodies. Anything and everything can happen visually. Within his shape a fish is like an abstract composition : whatever you paint is possible.

J’ai toujours été fasciné par un banc de poissons, c’est un ensemble de…

Tokyo is on my wish list of places to go. I saw a video of someone walking by night in a commercial part of Tokyo and being very much taken by the energy emanating by the city lights, I decided to make a short series of watercolor drawings consisting of blown-up shapes, bold colors, exaggerating the reflections or distortions caused while looking and walking at the same time. Part of the appeal…

Constructing a wall, Je construis un mur 2016 – 2020 – Mont St-Michel

Mont St-Michel is a stunning site. Apart from the fact that is seems to surge from the water, it is a beautiful monument of medieval architecture, mostly made of bricks, from floors to ceilings. Upon my return from Normandy, I made a series of linocut prints that I used to cover a lot of little wooden blocks. I put them in a box and forget about them for a few years, until I thought that I could…