Stéphane La Rue. Retracer la peinture

The Galerie de l’UQAM will launch the exhibition Stéphane La Rue. Retracer la peinture devoted to the oeuvre of the artist Stéphane La Rue, a towering figure in the new generation of Montreal painters. For over a decade this artist has been exploring a delimited zone of production within which he investigates the phenomena of our perception when confronted with monochrome white, and the endless possibilities it affords of illusionistic effects in a painting.

The selection of works assembled for this exhibition, executed between 1993 and 2007, demonstrates that La Rue’s artistic goal gradually incorporates both an approach to the painted object which verges on sculpture, and an ongoing use of drawing. The idea of retracing his paintings has a multiple purpose: to bring out the painterliness in the work, even when it is a drawing or sculpture; to go back over what has been painted in order to emphasize it, to underline it, to call attention to its fundamental components; to rethink painting as originating with the line or the brushstroke, the means by which his works establish the limits or borders between the paint and the support.

The exhibition is curated by Louise Déry and Marie-Eve Beaupré, and co-produced by the Galerie de l’UQAM and the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec. The artist is represented by Galerie Roger Bellemare.

Catalogue A comprehensive catalogue containing over fifty reproductions of works by the artist together with essays by the two curators and by guest experts Roger Bellemare, Nathalie de Blois, Bernard Lamarche and Monique Régimbald-Zeiber will be launched at the close of the exhibition. The 144-page bilingual catalogue has been produced thanks to funding from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.

Stephane La Rue
Retracer la peinture
Kuratoren: Marie-Eve Beaupre, Louise Dery