Biographical Notes
Born in Maniwaki (Québec), Etienne Gélinas graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in art and design from the Université du Québec en Outaouais in 2006. He has staged numerous painting and sculpture exhibitions, including at the café Aux quatre jeudis, at the Galerie d’art Époque, at the AxeNeo7 artist center in the Outaouais, at the Casino du Lac Leamy, at the Art-Image exhibition center and Espace Odysée gallery of the Maion de la Culture de Gatineau, at the Galerie d'avignon in Montréal, at the Galerie St-Laurent+Hill in Ottawa, as well as at the Galerie Montcalm of the Maison du Citoyen de Gatineau.
Curriculum Vitae
Artist Statement
In my painting, I strive to put different codes in opposition. I integrate collages of architectural drawings, mechanical plans and a form of technical drawing involving engraving in paste. These elements reflect a mastering of physical sciences, mathematics and mechanics. I incorporate these into a pictorial universe that is born out providence, the product of superposition of several transparent layers, creating channels and effects of depth. In addition, more random incisions serve to reinforce the juxtaposition with the rigid and precise universe of geometric codes.
A large part of my work plays on the affect, the emotive strength produced by the material. The ambiguity between the different levels, the transparency, the tints of colour, and the scratched appearance of the painting is very intense, even violent. At the same time, the brutality imbues the work whit a poetry that accentuates it’s emotive style, in contradiction with scientific objectivity.