INTERVIEW

In interview with Florence Contemporary Gallery

May 2023

Welcome Marcel, first and foremost, tell us about your background and why you choose to pursue this career. Do you remember the first artwork that moved something inside you?

To briefly recap, I was born in Havre-Saint-Pierre, Quebec, Canada, and I currently lives in Rimouski, Quebec. I began to draw and paint as a teenager, and made a career as a scientific illustrator. My illustrations are published in over 60 scientific publications. I retired from my job in 2012 and have been working as a freelance visual artist ever since. I participated in more than 23 international exhibitions in United States, Canada and Europe (Spain, Italy, France) and received several international awards.

When I started to take an interest in the visual arts, it was the works of the surrealists (Salvatore Dali) and the impressionists (Pissaro, Monet, Van Gogh). I very quickly found my calling in observational drawing and nature drawing became my main source of inspiration. Over time I have created a distinct style and identity of my own, which pushes me to diligently work for hours on detailed drawings or series of photographs. Finally, my artwork is an intimate interface between the real and the imagined.

How do you define yourself in the creative industry?

Each artist is incredibly different from another, and I have my own uniqueness that evolves over time. It is clear that although a contemporary artist, that is to say practicing today, I do not fit into the movement of contemporary art taken in the sense of conceptual art where the idea dominates image and where aesthetics is of little importance, if even there is any interest in it. I also don't practice installation or performance. I place myself in the movement of contemplative art or art of full attention by taking nature as the only subject, and voluntarily excluding anything that manifests human intervention in this nature. Natural elements are my only source of inspiration and expression, and I move from realism to abstraction when the subject imposes it on me.

Is creativity innate or do you have to work at it until the ideas come out?

I often feel a painful gap between what I produce and what I would like to produce. This gap is always present and the only solution to reduce it lies in perseverance, courage and above all discipline in practice. I explore the natural elements in an intuitive way in search of balanced compositions infused with energy, trying to make viewers see the transcendent, the invisible beyond the visible. My creative process uses meticulous observations that are slowly distilled over time in my subconscious, and finally rendered in detailed drawings and photographs either traditionally or digitally produced. Any photographer will tell you: noticing things is a skill that takes practice. The more time we spend observing, the more our eyes sharpen, and the more we discover. Observation sharpens our senses. Mindful photography trains us to look both inward and outward, to observe ourselves while observing the world. My mindful practice intensifies my connection and sensitivity to my environment and increases my state of clarity, curiosity, compassion, calm and confidence. Nature reveals itself to me according to my degree of presence. It is a solitary act that requires slowness.

What do you want your art to convey to the people who see it?

Mainly that there are two things that unite us all — our dependency on nature and the universal language of art.

What has been your most outstanding achievement to date?

After all these years of dedication to art FOR nature, the recognition and awards I have been receiving over the recent years at the international level are my greatest accomplishments and it warms my heart and strongly encourages me to continue. I feel like I'm at the start of a great adventure! I present a solo exhibition in a month and that too is a great achievement. The opportunity offered to us to present our work in a major solo exhibition is a very nice gift.

What are you working on at the moment?

As mentioned above, I am presenting my work in a solo exhibition from June 8 to July 14, in my hometown. After that, I will be in residence in northern Quebec with a poet to develop a joint publication or exhibition project. We do not yet know what will come out of this warm collaboration, but I'm sure it will be very inspiring. I will surely undertake a whole new series of drawings and I will continue to collaborate with those who support me abroad, such as the Florence Contemporary Gallery, as well as here in Canada.

We are at the end of this short interview, would you like to add something else about your artistic research? How did you find collaborating with our gallery?

Working for me is more and more taking myself out of the way, losing my ego, discovering and making something appear, following a direction, connecting to my unconscious perceptions and being surprised, moved by it. It's a game between my perceptions and their interpretations. These days, I even go so far as to blend my drawing inside my photographs. It is a joyfull adventure where I always find the forms of a certain nature. Balancing between illusion and reality, immateriality and matter, and using only natural light, I manage to capture quiet moments in the natural ecosystems most people fail to notice. In this exploration, only the desire to be present, from moment to moment guides my steps.

I thank the gallery for having selected me to be part of the catalog "50 artists to watch in 2023", it's an honor. It's a pleasure to work with you!