"New Line Continued" 2018
Oil on canvas
77' x 101' inches / 196 x 257 cm
Jean-Pierre Séguin
b. 1951, Canada
For several years, Jean-Pierre Séguin works on systems of representation in portraiture and on ways producing portraits. Relationships between photographic portraits and pictorial portraits are an integral part of his work. Thus, he has used several two-dimensional strategies to disturb viewers’ perceptions, strategies that prompt them to move about and try broaching the portrait from different distances. Through his or her motion, the spectator becomes a kind of zoom lens, varying focal length to produce effects of nearness and distance.
Approaching the image to get a better look, viewers lose their grip on the identifiable reality of the photograph; reference points that normally serve to guide viewers of photography evade them here. The spectator must then fall back on a purely formal, even abstract reading. By eliminating superfluous and decorative elements of representation, Séguin strives to display the procedures that go into making a portrait. He photographs contemporary artists to pay them homage, but also because it allows him to play on the identification of the represented individual, depending on reading distance.
The photographs are taken as objectively as possible, that is, he does not try to exploit the characters’ expression or their prestige. Rather, he tries to capture the anthropometric features, which, in a sense, constitute the core of individual identification. In the last six years, he met and photographed several Canadian, American, and European artists — Guido Molinari, Michel Goulet, Chuck Close, Michael Snow, Miquel Barcelo, Raymonde April, Melvin Charney, among others — who’ve allowed him to work from their portraits. From these snapshots, he produced digital portraits so that he could modify them and generate multiple perceptions of the image. Motifs created on the computer replace the strokes of paint that usually serve to create a representation.
This way of producing, while allowing for the addition of formal elements to the image, also fosters a much closer and more abstract reading of the photographic representation. True to the principle, he builts a portrait using thousands of different puzzle pieces in order, again, to obtain multiple perceptions of the image. In this particular case, it is the build-up through superimpositions and juxtapositions that replaces the forms and colours normally used in generating a representation. He searches through piles of puzzle pieces to find those that best suit the part of the portrait that he wants to represent. This makes it possible to add relief to the image, to discover other ways of perceiving and making a portrait.
With the generous support of Canadian Buttons, Limited, Séguin also created a portrait using some three thousand custom-made buttons, work that arose from the observations of print screens. Finally, he has several projects under way that lead him to use different procedure and compose with different materials in view of discovering other ways of obtaining both a figurative and an abstract perception of the portrait on the same surface. Jean-Pierre Séguin is looking for something very concrete in the context of abstract work.
Education
UQAM, 1972 à1975 Baccalaureat, 1977 à 1979 Maîtrise
Work : Université du Québec de 1979 à 2011
Public Collections
Collection du Musée d'Art Contemporain à Montréal
Collection Banque d'oeuvres du Conseil des Arts du Canada
Collection du Musée d’Art Contemporain des Laurentides
Collection prêt d'oeuvres d'art du Musée du Québec
Collection de la Galerie Nationale du Canada
Collection du Musée de Joliette
Collection du Musée de Rimouski
Collection de la Bibliothèque Nationale du Québec
Collection Loto-Québec
Collection de l'atelier d'estampe Sagamie
Collection de la Bibliothèque Centrale de prêt du Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean
Collection Steinberg
Collection Gaz Métropolitain
Collection de la Fondation Asselin
Collection Alcan
Collection Banque nationale du Canada
Colart Collection et autres collections privées
Awards
1975 Concours d'affiches du Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal
1975 Concours de la bourse Greenshield, Université du Québec à Montréal
1979 Concours d'estampes et de dessins québécois, Centre culturel de l'Université de Sherbrooke
1979 Biennale II du Québec, Centre Saidye Bronfman, Montréal
1988 Concours de sérigraphie du Cegep de Chicoutimi
1989 Biennale du dessin, de l'estampe et du papier du Québec
Solo Exhibitions
2015 Galerie GRAFF, Montréal
2014 OK Harris gallery, New York
2012 Galerie GRAFF, Montréal
2009 OK Harris gallery, New York
2007 OK Harris gallery, New York
2006 Gallerie Langage Plus,Alma
2004 Centre National d’Exposition,Jonquière
2001 Galerie L'oeuvre de l'autre, Chicoutimi
1999 Galerie Montréal Télégraphe, Montréal
1997 Galerie de l'Atelier d'estampe Sagamie, Alma
1995 Ateliers s'exposent, Montréal
1995 Latitude 53 Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta
1991 372 Ste-Catherine ouest, Montréal
1991 Galerie Estampe Plus, Québec
1983 Galerie Espace Virtuel, Chicoutimi
1983 Galerie Graff, Montréal
1980 Galerie Treize, Montréal
1979 Galerie UQAM, Montréal
1978 Galerie Curzi, Montréal
1978 L'Anse aux Barques, Québec
1976 Galerie Curzi, Montréal
1975 Centre Culturel, Châteauguay
1975 Galerie Laurent Tremblay, Montréal
Group Exhibitions
2015 PAPIER15, Montréal paper art fair, GRAFF
2013 Art Toronto, international art fair, Graff galery
2013 PAPIER13, Montréal paper art fair, GRAFF
2012 Contemporary art fair of works on paper, Graff galery
2010 Collection d’œuvres d’art du Collège Édouard-Monpetit
2010 Le Paradoxe,Centre national d’exposition, Jonquière
2010 Summeryview, OK Harris, New York
2005 Faking Death, Jack Shainman gallery, New York
2001 Corridart, Galerie Leonard & Bina Ellen, Montréal
1998 Bradley national print and drawing exhibition .Illinois U.S.A.
1998 Les 200 ans de la lithographie, Bibliothèque nationale du Québec
1997 Traces et mémoires,Galerie J.C.Bergeron,Ottawa
1996 Bradley national print and drawing exhibition .Illinois U.S.A.
1990 Biennale du dessin, de l'estampe et du papier de Montréal,Paris
1990 Quebec Prints, Maryland, U.S.A
1988 North American Difference Young Canadian Artists,Osaka,Japon
1988 Épreuves d'artistes, Toronto, Ontario
1979 Jeunes Contemporains, London, Ontario
1979 20 X 20 Italie/Canada, Milan, Italie
1979 Canadian Artists, Toronto
1978 Compass-Montréal, Toronto
1977 Exposition 03-23-03, Galerie Nationale, Ottawa
1977 Jeunes Contemporains, Régina, Victoria, Calgary, Kingston, Fredericton, Charlottetown, Montréal
