Dynamical Systems

For the past three decades, Montreal-based artist François Lacasse has been exploring the seemingly endless possibilities of painting, both in terms of its materials and techniques. Colour plays a central role in his practice. His artistic research employs chemical reactions and physical phenomena that are the result of experimenting with varying pigment weights and textures and with gravity, among other strategies. 

In this most recent body of work, which he started roughly two years ago, Lacasse draws our attention to the mechanics of fluids. Layers upon layers of paint are applied to the canvas as it lies horizontally in the studio. While this initial gesture of application only takes a few minutes to perform, paint continues to react on the canvas for days before the work resumes. 

The visual outcome of this experiment is determined by an abundance of conditions and circumstances that are completely outside of the artist’s control: the temperature of the room, its humidity, the quantity of paint applied and the resulting drying time. These conditions are directly translated onto the surface of the painting. In this way, one can conceive of this series of paintings as a layered record of these successive studio sessions. Through this dynamic process, each new session becomes entangled with the previous ones - ultimately forming a resolved surface.  Though the painting exists as a fixed image, it nonetheless retains an evocative account of its fluid past state. One might even go as far as to envision underwater seascapes with flowing medusas. In this sense, these paintings offer a poetic account, portraying the suggestive potential of fluid pigments.