Recent Paintings

    At 2260 Oak Bay Avenue

    June 8 – 26, 2010

    Preview
    June 8 - 12, 2010   10 am – 5:30 pm daily(work subject to prior sale

    Opening:
    Sunday, June 13, 2010   1 pm – 5 pm

    Elizabeth Ely, harpist;  Karel Roessingh, pianist

    In 1981 Jeannette Perreault viewed a major exhibition of Post-Impressionist cloisonné paintings in Toronto.  The experience inspired her to take a year to study drawing and art history at The University of Quebec, Montreal.  When she progressed to painting, she found that her paint was obscuring or down-playing the drawing component, the element which she most wished to emphasize.  Her solution was to darken the line.  The extent to which she did so, and her original enthusiasm for the Toronto exhibition, suggest some influence from the latter, even if perhaps mainly in the form of validation.

    The gestural contour lines in Perreault’s paintings are particularly evocative of Toulouse-Lautrec’s contours and to some extent Matisse’s. The arabesques and patterning in her paintings also recall Matisse.

    ‘Because of the strong lines, it was necessary to develop strong colours,’ Perreault says.  Here is where she parts company with Toulouse-Lautrec and Matisse.  Her colours are vibrant and opaque – not washy or transparent.  Instead of a thin colour over white gesso and consequently a washy cool ‘look,’ a yellow ochre-tinged gesso is exposed in various places while in others it is hidden by opaque high-key colour, off which light reflects.  Warmth and liveliness result.

    Key also to her painting is its imagery of everyday objects and situations. It evokes, or expresses outright, time for reflection or leisure.  The chairs, tables, flowers, books, tea cups, activity in cafes, hustle and bustle at the theatre are subject-matter which has universal appeal.

    Highlights in this exhibition include an 18 x 36 inch night scene, a 48 x 36 still life and a 36 x 48 predominantly blue still life.

    Jeannette Perreault’s artwork is represented in many private and corporate collections including RBC;  Knight, Bain, Seath & Hollbrook; Du Pont Canada; Trimark Investment & Management Inc.; Galiano Equities; and Reprotech Inc.

     

 

Jeannette Perreault