Presentation of Works from the La Grande Promenade Exhibition in LaSalle

Bryan Beyung

Work of art produced in partnership with MU as part of the Mural Art Program.

Inspired by the Village des Rapides, its past, its residents and its nature, Bryan Beyung has created a hyper-realistic mural that blends two images from distinct sources: an archival photograph of the former local Rocky Beach and a fictional landscape, where dense, lush, even exotic nature enhances the uniqueness of Parc des Rapides.

With a degree in graphic design, Bryan Beyung prefers the intuitiveness of a more abstract pictorial approach to compositions influenced by his past as a graffiti artist. In a style that could be described as post-modern, his entire work of art combines the figurative with abstraction, the fictional with the real, the past with the present, and the visual references associated with various artistic movements. Bryan Beyung’s works of art can be seen in the United States, Canada, Haiti and Cambodia.

Julian Palma

Work of art created in partnership with MU

You can recognize Julian Palma’s works of art by his trademark: abstract background; presence of mythical or fantasy figures that seem to fly or levitate in an indefinite space; curved and organic lines; colourful, dynamic palette. Lastly, note the impression of movement so present in Palma’s works, as if a great wind were blowing in each of the images.

The work of art painted on the sidewalk is an improvised and original creation.

Julian Palma holds a Bachelor’s degree in visual arts from Javeriana University in Bogota, Colombia, and has distinguished himself as an illustrator, muralist and video artist. Arriving in Montréal in 2011, he created his first large-scale outdoor mural in the summer of 2015. Since then, Palma’s works of art can be seen throughout the City.

Catherine Aboumrad

L’arbre

Catherine Aboumrad explores the interaction between space and light by photographing trees lit only by street lamps. The result is a chiaroscuro that gives the trees a majestic, yet mysterious and perhaps even disturbing presence. These photographs, placed on the windows of the building, could lead us to believe that they are merely a reflection of the trees outside. However, we realize that these trees do not exist and for a moment we question not the image, but what they represent… the reality. It is in this sense that the windows where the photographs are displayed are not simple supports. In the context of this exhibition, they form part of the work of art, of its experience.

Catherine Aboumrad holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts and teaches photography at the college level. In addition to having participated in many exhibitions and events in Canada and elsewhere, her work is part of several private and public collections, including the HBC Foundation, the Art-in-Buildings in New York, and the Auer Collection in Switzerland.

Cyndie Belhumeur

La couleur du bruit

La couleur du bruit is an exhibition in which the artist deals with the issues of the digital age through embroidery and installation. To do so, Cyndie Belhumeur’s creations are worked from a pre-established form of organization that seeks to present a moving flow of information.

A self-taught artist, Belhumeur first became known as a muralist. Now exploring embroidery on canvas, the artist has abandoned the brush in favour of the sewing needle. Seeing canvas sewn in this way prompts us to become aware of its materiality and to take a closer look at the texture of the works as a whole. Some canvases form circles from which the fabric falls to the ground. The painting thus becomes a sculpture. Through multiple images, superimposed effects and the diversity of the materials used, Belhumeur seeks to overwhelm the viewer by presenting a multitude of intermingled elements.

Marjorie de Chantal

Concerto pour les absents

Video installation

Concerto pour les absents is a scene from a meal with friends where the guests are no longer present. During a laboratory filming, bearing witness to what was, the camera documents the event by filming what remains. Presented in the form of three panels, the meal is marked by the traces and objects left by the guests. Absorbed by their passage, this place is cradled by the duality between the absence of the body and its affective presence.

Marjorie de Chantal is trained in fine crafts and visual arts, and practises ceramics, painting, video and photography. Recipient of the Avatar award (Université Laval) and the Première Ovation scholarship, the artist is fascinated by the interstices between intimacy, silence, the malleability of time and impressions. Her works thus bring together two temporalities occupying the same space, one built around present elements and the other manipulating elements from the past.

Manuel Chantre

Hommage à celles et ceux qui luttent contre la COVID-19

This work of art is a testament to the dedication of health care workers and a tribute to all those who have fought against COVID-19 and who are continuing the fight today. The sculpture in perpetual motion is made up of mirror strips that twirl rapidly in the wind. These movements capture the reflections of the world around them and symbolically embody those of hospital staff and patients, but also those of passers-by and nature. These movements also allow the reflections of light, natural by day and artificial at night, to sway to the rhythm of the wind, mixing colours and shapes, thereby creating an optical effect of vibrations. This mass of energy evokes the possibilities of finding our way in this time of transformation. The work of art therefore contains the solutions.

Visual and digital artist as well as composer, Manuel Chantre creates installations, sculptures, performances and public works of art. Since 2004, his works of art have been produced for numerous internationally renowned media arts institutions, public art, private collections and commissions. His work proposes a fictional universe that is both sensory and narrative. His works of art explore memory, identity and inhabited, imagined, immaterial or virtual spaces, made by human beings.

Benoit Brousseau

L’attente

This work of art presents a series of portraits printed on concrete whose ghostly appearance speaks as much of loneliness as of oblivion. While the slabs give the impression of tombstones, the identity of these people remains anonymous and their blurred features seem to have been erased by time. The concrete nevertheless gives them a presence in the world and the photo, although tending to disappear, symbolically preserves their aura.     

A graduate in visual and media arts, Benoît Brousseau is the recipient of scholarships for excellence and his work has been recognized through competitions. In collaboration with the Aids Community organization, he is pursuing photographic work involving people living with HIV. He is also a member of the Cuisinage collective, which is interested in exploring the identity of people, places and communities. In his work, he draws on his autobiographical experiences and tells his own story through the stories of others. He seeks to transcribe silence by giving voice to the forgotten.

Rafael Sottolichio

A Montréal painter of Chilean origin, Rafael Sottolichio studied at universities in Santiago and Montréal. He has been painting since 1996 and has taken part in a number of exhibitions in Québec City, Montréal and Halifax. He also works as a muralist and curator. His paintings are the result of a work of image and representation, where he creates contrasting links between figurative zones and a work of matter, texture and figuration. In recent years, his work has explored the theme of identity in relation to public space, immigration and the relationship to territory.

Tape Art

It was in the United States in the 1990s that the first artists began to trade their brushes and cans for adhesive tape. Emerging from Street Art, Tape Art is in fact ephemeral, given the precariousness of the material. Popularized in the 2000s, today there are as many styles of Tape Art as there are artists who engage in this practice.

Natacha Clitandre

Perdu-e-s et retrouvé-e-s

The artist invites you to slow down the pace, to walk along avenue Dollard while contemplating the urban landscape and to use the benches provided there for you. On some of them, graphic elements evoke objects, activities, moments or habits that might have been lost and/or found during a short stopover. A sort of landmark, these visual addresses are identifiable on a human scale and display graphically distinctive signage for anyone who attentively walks along avenue Dollard. These benches are also an opportunity to sit down and reflect on the slowdown itself. For example, what did we lose as a result of the slowdown imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic? But also, what did we find again?

With a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts from UQÀM and Concordia, Natacha Clitandre then studied graphic design and completed a Master’s degree in Theory and Practice of Contemporary Art and New Media at Université Paris 8 and the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs. Her work focuses on mobile diffusion devices, the link established between the artist and the public through graphic and video supports inserted in various everyday spaces. Her work has been presented in various European and North American cities.