SYLVIE BOUCHARD

Sylvie Bouchard creates and explores a world of dreamlike symbols and scenarios, in which characters, animals, objects and places gradually phase into existence. Her style draws as much on the western traditions of theatre and theatricality as it does on the fine art movements of symbolism, surrealism and new image painting. Her compositions depict a landscape that is a knowing projection of the faculty of imagination, in itself, beyond understanding and yet uncannily known. The things that seem to happen and to exist there are certainly related to classical archetypes and the contents of human subconsciousness. But a baffling and beautiful sense still retains its arbitrariness in these paintings, a resistance to explanation either by psychology or iconology. Bouchard deploys painterly effects slowly and coolly, mining a palette of chromatic greys, producing an imagery that slowly unfolds its loveliness as well as its more profound implications over time.

Based in Montreal, Sylvie Bouchard has been a leading figure in Canadian painting since the early 1980s. Her work has been exhibited in major institutions, including a retrospective at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, and solo shows at the Musée régional de Rimouski and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery. Bouchard’s practice has also been featured in numerous national and international exhibitions, which includes a current touring presentation showcased at three major museums in Mexico. Past notable venues include the Musée d’art de Joliette, the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver, the Art Gallery of Ontario and OBORO.

Bouchard’s paintings are held in many prominent public and corporate collections, among them the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Musée d’art de Joliette, the Canada Council Art Bank, the National Bank of Canada, the Royal Bank of Canada, as well as numerous private collectors.

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