OPENING THIS WEEK: PAUL BELIVEAU, VANITAS

Opening this Thursday, February 12th from 6-8pm: Vanitas, an exhibition of new paintings by Paul Béliveau.

Paul Béliveau has exhibited widely across North America. His paintings of books references a database of literally thousands of personal and historical photographs. With painstaking accuracy, Béliveau paints culturally significant artifacts such as his own book collection, 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 a strategy against loss, even though worn books evoke the passage of time and reveal one's own finiteness.”