2020 VISUAL SIGNATURE
RÉJEAN TOUSSAINT

My main artistic activities are painting and drawing. I’ve been an instructor in painting for several years, and I’ve recently begun to teach drawing, at the Université de Moncton’s Edmundston campus. I completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts in 1989. Later, in 2014, I obtained a multidisciplinary Bachelor of Arts in French and Philosophy.

I've participated in a number of joint exhibitions. The latest was Incontournable in Dieppe, NB, during the Congrès mondial acadien. I was part of Foisonnement (2016) and Enracinement (2015) at the Galerie Colline, as well as Dialogues imaginés (2015) at the Beaverbrook. In 2014, I exhibited in Moncton at the Galerie Louise-et-Ruben-Cohen, 50||50||50, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Visual Arts Department at the Université de Moncton. In 2004, I participated in a Canadian exhibition in China: The Magnificent 7, Taikoo Place, Hong Kong, as well as at the visual arts festival in Saint John in 2001. My latest solo exhibition was at the Galerie ART-ARTISTE in Dieppe in 2019 and my next exhibition will be in Edmundston in December 2020.

 

Artistic Process

My work is essentially an exploration of technique on paper, cloth, wood, metal, etc.

My favorite medium is acrylic, glazed with a gel or an acrylic medium. Then, when the painting is finished, I apply a coat of varnish.
 
One or two elements of a dream will worm their way into the process of creation: a person, an animal, a color, a texture, etc.

The image becomes more elaborate and complex with the imagination and gives off a dreamlike, fantastical and supernatural vibe.


Artist quote

Making something beautiful out of our little resentments … I imagine that this is the greatest gift that this human activity can offer: art with colors.

For that, we have to dare to look ourselves straight in the eye and seek some sort of truth.

The truth that reveals a few northern or southern lights, sometimes too bright for our eyes to bear.

Converging sources suggest an itinerary that is more like a gulf: dreams, reveries, daily life, human or inhuman relationships and spirituality (going beyond daily life). A work that implies leaving quite a lot to chance and to the mysterious, allowing it to assume shape, texture and color.

This is how our resentments become little joys.

 

Support the artist and the Festival by purchasing a painting!

The other paintings in the Telemann Series are also on sale.  For more information, call the Festival office: 506-344-3261 or email (baroque@lameque.ca).