Raymond Lavoie

Raymond Lavoie considers painting as an opportunity to explore the function of representation in art. He attempts to generate a renewal of the medium by unusual applications, including the use of monochrome and through the collection of photographs. His early works emerged from a process based on the practice of photographing models, site-specific installations and most importantly, on fictitious constructions. The artist thus uses the medium as a tool for documentation, or even reportage, already elaborating the dominant themes of his artistic career: memory, reminiscence and cataloguing. His recent works include a new dimension as they refer directly to biographical information and are no longer staged. The photographic reports, applied to the canvas and covered with geometric patches of colour, are excerpts from his personal life (past and present), or refer to his interests in design or architecture. Seeming to be often tinged with nostalgia, the work of Raymond Lavoie uniquely develops a paradox involving the “zero degree" of modernist painting by the use of monochromes and intimate experiences with the choice of underlying photographic representations.

Further reading:

• « De souvenirs et de fragments », article by Jérôme Delgado for Le Devoir, April 13, 2013.
• « Les doubles sens de Raymond Lavoie », article by Jocelyne Lepage for La Presse, November 7, 2009.
• « La leçon de peinture », article by Mario Côté for ETC, no 13 1990, p 38-39.