SHERBROOKE: Twenty works by Eastern Townships’ artist Denis Pellerin are being featured in a current exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Sherbrooke (until March 31). These pieces in varying formats defy and confuse the usual classic definitions of painting, as much in the choice of materials as in the use that Denis Pellerin makes of them. Working in different media -- painting, drawing, collage, he has developed a very personal universe over a period of more than thirty years. The textures and colours that he chooses have resulted in a body of work which is both rich and tactile. Superpositions and juxtapositions add a surprising density to a “pauvre” material, an abstract full of knots and bursts of colour. Even the titles given to his works evoke an awakening of the senses: Jardin, Compost, Épiderme.

Pellerin explains: “My work accentuates matter which is liberated, aggravated, untamed and unpolished. I toss the paint on the canvas, then work and re-work it, destroying the surface to underline the fragility of the paint.”

Paradoxically, in this way the artist achieves the essence of nature itself, a stripping of the terrestrial bark, one might say. His works summon time, and the passage of time which leaves its tracks and trails, the happenstance of its existence, that primal moment. Could primitive art in itself be closer to the sacred?

Biography

Born at Ham-Nord in 1953, Denis Pellerin now works and lives in Montréal. He received a B.A. in Visual Arts from the University of Québec, in Montréal in 1984. Throughout his work, Denis Pellerin uses a special technique of collage, including “pauvre” materials on canvas -- an approach which is categorized as an aesthetic similar to “Arte Povera”. For the last twenty-five years, this artist has pursued his quest for transdisciplinary sculptural possibilities. His paintings have been shown throughout Québec, elsewhere in North America, as well as in several European countries. The Denis Pellerin exhibition is sponsored by the Galerie Lacerte art contemporain.

The Musée wishes to thank the Agence Oenopole for organizing the official vernissage event. Le Musée des beaux-arts de Sherbrooke is supported by the Minister of Culture and Communications and by la Ville de Sherbrooke. The MBAS is located at 241 Dufferin Street, in the downtown part of Sherbrooke.

For more information: 819-821-2115; www.mbas.qc.ca