CONCURRENT - PAUL BELIVEAU & PATRICK HUGHES
Patrick Hughes and Paul Beliveau met at Winsor Gallery a few years ago. They had a joint exhibition at Winsor Gallery in 2009. Both artists speak to pop sensibilities referencing Pop-Art, Op-Art and the myriad of artists who are of that time. But they also reflect and delve even further back to history, Paul with his traditional approach to oil on canvas and Vanitas style painting, and Patrick with his constant exploration of perspective and reverspective.
Patrick Hughes
Exaggeration is the name of Hughes’ game. His perspective is forced, his doors and walls set off towards infinity far too enthusiastically. Flat perspective drawing would be just too flat for him. The shapes Patrick uses could be put together in a different way to make stage sets, geometric caves, but he makes them the wrong way round, sticking out instead of going in. Impossible objects, changing tents, art galleries, library doors, rooms with suitcases, arcades and skyscrapers, this artist has manoeuvred many things into his system. He has kept to the discipline of the straight lines of perspective, but they have led him to many different pictures. Hughes’ other main quest is for shapes and designs to lever his representations into. He sometimes makes a long narrowing vista, tending towards infinity. He uses hidden corners and cut-in shapes like the suitcase.
Patrick Hughes
Exaggeration is the name of Hughes’ game. His perspective is forced, his doors and walls set off towards infinity far too enthusiastically. Flat perspective drawing would be just too flat for him. The shapes Patrick uses could be put together in a different way to make stage sets, geometric caves, but he makes them the wrong way round, sticking out instead of going in. Impossible objects, changing tents, art galleries, library doors, rooms with suitcases, arcades and skyscrapers, this artist has manoeuvred many things into his system. He has kept to the discipline of the straight lines of perspective, but they have led him to many different pictures. Hughes’ other main quest is for shapes and designs to lever his representations into. He sometimes makes a long narrowing vista, tending towards infinity. He uses hidden corners and cut-in shapes like the suitcase.
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Excerpt from Patrick Hughes|Multiples by Murray McDonald.
Patrick
Hughes is celebrating his 75th year with a wide variety of solo and group
exhibitions, including solo shows at Flowers Gallery New York opening in May
and Flowers London in September 2014. Hughes will also stage a major survey
exhibition at Panorama Mesdag, in Holland this spring and will feature
alongside Escher, Magritte, Vasarely and further important artists in Visual
Deception II, touring three museums in Japan from August 2014 until late 2015.
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| Patrick Hughes, Brilliancy, 2008 |
Paul Béliveau
Paul Béliveau was born in Quebec in 1954 and attained his Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts from Laval University in 1977; he is an expert in drawing, painting and engraving. Béliveau’s approach to creating art has been best described as “pictorial archaeology,” as his work references a database of literally thousands of personal and historical photographs. With painstaking accuracy, Béliveau paints culturally significant artifacts such as his own book collections, placing volumes on Friedrich, Futurism, and Van Gogh beside the poetry of Friedrich von Schiller and Beethoven. Although Béliveau says he values ambiguity ( “I do not like to name or designate things”), his painting style illustrates a deep reverence for preservation, precision and clarity. This paradox of elements - both technical and philosophical - is what makes his work so intrinsically brilliant. Béliveau says, “I like to use painted books as strategy against loss, even though worn books evoke the passage of time and reveal one’s own finiteness.”
Paul Béliveau was born in Quebec in 1954 and attained his Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts from Laval University in 1977; he is an expert in drawing, painting and engraving. Béliveau’s approach to creating art has been best described as “pictorial archaeology,” as his work references a database of literally thousands of personal and historical photographs. With painstaking accuracy, Béliveau paints culturally significant artifacts such as his own book collections, placing volumes on Friedrich, Futurism, and Van Gogh beside the poetry of Friedrich von Schiller and Beethoven. Although Béliveau says he values ambiguity ( “I do not like to name or designate things”), his painting style illustrates a deep reverence for preservation, precision and clarity. This paradox of elements - both technical and philosophical - is what makes his work so intrinsically brilliant. Béliveau says, “I like to use painted books as strategy against loss, even though worn books evoke the passage of time and reveal one’s own finiteness.”
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| Paul Beliveau, Vanitas III, 2013 |
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