Jean Gareau
Biography notes
Born in Montreal, Jean Gareau has been educated as an architect at the then École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal where the cursus included art studios. He had been practicing painting earlier and had studied with sculptor Louis Archambault and painter Jacques de Tonnancour. After a career as an architect, he has resumed painting which he had temporally abandoned. More recently, he has worked with David Glllanders at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and in the studio of Pierre Lafleur, painter and muralist. Now an autonomous artist, he works in his own studio. His favourite mediums include acrylic paint and pastel.
Jean Gareau’s works have been shown in solo exhibitions in Quebec in 2008 and 2009, in Paris in 2011 and 2012, and in Montreal in 2014, 2017 and 2019. He has also taken part in 25 group exhibitions throughout Quebec.
A number of works are part of private collections, mostly in Quebec and in France.
Artistic Approach
Works sketched on the site and developed in the studio, or genuine creations based on past impressions and reminiscences, my landscape paintings recreate or evoke colours, atmosphere and spaces, leaning at times towards abstraction. Occasionally, unexpected colours may draw attention on form or show the sheer joy of playing with colours. Landscapes are often imaginary, on the edge of abstractions, reflecting the process of memory which retains, but also classifies, organizes and schematizes.
In those figurative and non-figurative currents, spontaneity and subconscious lead the act of painting. Colours, often in complementary pairs, burst onto the canvas, at times violent and explosive. Works are often organized in the course of execution, with occasional reference to nature or space, playing with splashes and drippings, scratching the canvas to convey impressions to the viewer.
Works have thus progressed through figurative and non-figurative stages to a second degree vision. Do boundaries still matter? Isn’t the essence of the act of painting to share emotions and involve the viewer.
According to the writer Marguerite Yourcenar “The world is a cluster of spots of colour thrown in space by a crazy painter”.