Focus - Small Works: December Curation

Pierre Bellemare’s fundamental inspiration is characterized by energy, rhythm and action, in relation to different cultural and musicians mosaics. Through the use of color, light, texture and elements of calligraphy, musical creations unfold on canvas. For the artist, color holds a vibration akin to music. This vibration invites us to see a world expressed through the power of abstraction, rather than pictures or words.

This freedom of gesture, in full awareness of the present moment, relies on a foundation that springs from an amalgamation of knowledge and artistic spontaneity. For Bellemare, design, balance and structure are essential for a deep and powerful expression in a painting in all its uniqueness.

"My work explores the interplay of form, colour, and reflection, blurring the boundaries between painting and sculpture. Employing an experimental and rigorous practice, I work with oil paint, cold wax medium, acrylics, and shaped, laminated forms. The edges of each piece are painted with fluorescent colours, which, when mounted on a wall, create a halo-like aura around the work.
My aim is to engage the viewer by fostering a dynamic dialogue between the artwork and its immediate context. The colourful reflections evoke, for me, an aura of optimism and resilience, and extends the presence of the work beyond its physical boundaries. "

-  Laurie Skantzos

"My approach concerning the integration of recycled copper in my artworks started in 2011, when I was offered the opportunity to acquire fragments of the Château Frontenac’s old roofing. Working with pieces taken from this jewel of Quebec City’s heritage was for me not only an honour, but also a way to explore other avenues of the artistic creation. Having been entrusted with a piece of the copper, I felt invested with an important mission: preserving a page of our history by giving it a new life through a resolutely current approach.

I first had to tame a material that was thus far alien to me. So I folded, hammered, and brushed pieces of copper until they surrendered their secrets. It took me a year to master the art of handling the copper, an approach that demanded the acquisition of several pieces of equipment and the development of a new space in my workshop."

-  Jean Gaudreau

Maria Laura is a Brazilian-born mixed media artist based in South Florida.

As a daughter of an artist, she grew up with constant exposure to the creative process in her mother’s studio. It was this early exposure that awakened Maria Laura to the arts and inspired her to master the techniques she now uses in her work.

Her work brings portraits of iconic figures to life through a complex process that involves a fusion of techniques such as painting, collage, crystals and gems application. She focuses her subject matter on pop culture and fashion with the intention of keeping the historical relevance of those icons.

Oliver Bernardi is a photo-based artist exploring the tension between impermanence and preservation, presence and absence. Through darkroom-based processes including contact printing, photograms, and analog compositing, his work functions as a quiet act of reverence — tracing the invisible weight of time, memory, and transformation. Drawing on symbolic elements from the natural world, Bernardi creates images that act less as documentation and more as devotional objects: vessels for the unrepeatable moment, the edge of a veil, and subtle proof of presence — of what was briefly here, and still lingers.