| Based in Québec, Montréal, Canada, trained engraver and innovative artist Michel Beaucage has shown his paintings around the world, including his standout contribution to the NY Arts Venice Biennale pavilion earlier this year. Shifting between two approaches—Abstraction and naïve figuration—his oeuvre is compelling in its diversity. |  |
Suzie Walshe
Based in Québec, Montréal, Canada, trained engraver and innovative artist Michel Beaucage has shown his paintings around the world, including his standout contribution to the NY Arts Venice Biennale pavilion earlier this year. Shifting between two approaches—Abstraction and naïve figuration—his oeuvre is compelling in its diversity. He paints intuitively, instinctually coloring his canvases in bright palettes of brilliant hues and atmospheric tones. Inspired by the natural world, he infuses his works with a Zen-like spirit of harmony and balance.His works are notable in their innovate employment of multiple media. This includes his use of both acrylic and oil on the same canvas, along with his utilization of collage. Despite his mainly abstract work, he maintains figurative elements, and is not afraid to mix approaches and styles, occasionally combining abstract components, figuration, and even text in a single work. In fact, Beaucage has been breaking boundaries throughout his entire career, and continues to do so today: in his latest works the artist utilizes the translucent nature of rice paper, canvas, and acrylic. Formulating a special technique, Beaucage invites the viewer to explore his epic world where his striking paintings draw us into an enigmatic and sensual universe of fantasy, seduction, and spirit.
One series in particular evokes vibrating fields of energy. Secret Flowers I-IV is reminiscent of the intense patterning of the London School, as well as some of the abstract designs in the paintings of Cy Twombly and Anselm Kiefer. A composition of structured lines and sparkling paint—like automatic drawing—these images resonate with a profound sense that the subconscious soul has been manifested in color and form. Several of his Abstract Expressionist works express just that: the balance of nature. Through the artifice of abstraction we can see a landscape: earth, water, and sky. Take Sauvez des eaux I-V for example. This epic engraving depicts a world of sky blue, aquamarine, and jet black. The ground is overlaid with a motif of octagonal geometric shapes at the top and bottom, and a dance-like gestural splash of black over a scrubbed-out cobalt form, both hovering above the “horizon.” References to natural energy forces abound in this work, whose title is reinforced by the energetic gestures of the ink strokes. In the cases where Beaucage allows his sensitivity to form and color take over, his work verges on pure abstraction. In fact, he achieves a seemingly effortless synthesis of abstraction and representation, presenting curvilinear contoured forms replete with subtle tone transitions of a variety of hues.
Each line dances across the surface of the canvas in a very personal attempt by the artist to transpose his sensibility into colors and forms. Color is of paramount importance to the artist, whose palette evolves based on his environment. Beaucage’s surfaces are ablaze with saffron, crimson, and burnt umber in his figurative works. The Mercure series brilliantly captures the effervescent colored lights and forms of nature that contrast with the neutral spectrum used in earlier works. This dynamic work is infused with references to literature, but more significantly to nature and travel.
Time spent in Italy led the artist to perceive painting as symbolic practice; this sentiment was furthered by his exhibition in China (at the Beijing International Art Biennial and at the Shanghai High Noon Art & Culture Centre solo in 2005) where Beaucage’s artistic interests began to reside in the purity and beauty of the natural environment. His artistic intentions furthered the development of his work to reflect the subtle and varied forces and energies of life itself.
The result of such journeys and discoveries is clearly seen in his recent work, where the gesture has become more direct and incisive, with a wider range of colors and harmonization. A compelling hybrid of both Eastern and Western influences, new works such as Quartier de jade I-XI and Root’s Dream I-IX display compositional surfaces that recall Formalism, while the palette is inspired by the visible world and suggestive perceptions, evoking nature, artistic movements, and Eastern culture. Both the elements of Western modernism and Asian tradition work together in dynamic tension to render a sense of active harmony. Working primarily with acrylic, pastel, charcoal, and collage on canvas and rice paper, the choice of materials is part of his cross-cultural tableau. The use of acrylic and rice papers creates an illusion of transparency and fragility, while the integration of collage (rice papers, jute, fragments of engravings with carborundum and drawings) adds texture and volume of his work.
Ultimately, it is a sense of equilibrium that Beaucage seeks to express, and he equates this feeling of inner peace and quiet balance to the attainment of a divine state. The fact that these paintings transform themselves before our eyes into abstractions in which we perceive not only the images themselves—with all their subtle variations of color and form—but also the feelings of solitude and pensive contemplation they engender, speaks to Beaucage’s ability to capture the spiritual on canvas.
Reminiscent of a dream voyage to another place, his works are deeply personal, evoking his own subconscious while revealing universal truths about the journey and celebration of life. With bravery and intuit, Beaucage’s current work travels down many unfamiliar paths, exploring new techniques and aesthetics. Paint and its power to transform, however, will remain a central focus throughout his creations.
