A passion

A passionate painter, Jean-Pierre Gagnon is a painter who shuns routine. Whether in his colorful landscape paintings, his flower paintings or his abstract works, one style is always the laboratory of the other.

Inspired by the Gaspé Peninsula, his landscape paintings take us into an imaginary world sometimes bordering on naive art. The wide open spaces of the Gaspé and the St. Lawrence River are a permanent source of inspiration for this Quebec painter. The painter also loves to paint nature scenes inspired by his walks in the forest and his fishing trips in the lakes and streams of his region.

His flower paintings are first of all a search for an abstract background that creates an effect of depth and contrast with the daisies in the foreground. The flowers give the illusion of being carried along by a current that rocks them with the emotions and energy generated according to the artist’s moods throughout the process of creating the work.

The Abstracts in Two Different Energies

In the first, the painter likes to play with color and space. The different planes in the painting create spaces to escape into a world of color, shape and light.
The second is a more urban and modern energy. The paintings are created in a world of perspective that gives a vision of a modern city with often reflections on a surface that is surely inspired by the view of the St. Lawrence River that the artist paints.

The material

The old computer parts.

Matter is a must for this painter who is always looking for new dimensions. “I’ve always loved old computer parts. Sitting at my desk, I would spend a lot of time looking at these man-made wonders. I always thought they looked like modern cities in miniature” That’s how one winter day the Urban Memory series was born. The painter remembers it like it was yesterday. While an abstract painting was drying between two layers, he was playing with his old circuit board parts, ram memories to be more precise. And then, bang! The idea came to him to glue them in his painting. There are days like that when time stops and the energy of the present moment possesses us like a trance. That’s when you realize that the magic of creation has worked again. That unique feeling that acts like a drug. A few hours later, the contemporary urban memory series was born.

The spatula

The spatula is an essential for this artist. Giving a spatula stroke is to create moods, mixtures of colors and powerful contrasts that pack a punch. The shadows created by successive layers of paint or structural mortar have always been challenges in themselves. As the painter often says, “a painting with a spatula is quickly done and quickly missed.”

The Research

My brain is always looking for new ways to do things. Whether it’s backdrops, color harmonies, compositions. I’ve changed jobs a lot in my life, surely in some jobs the creative side wasn’t free enough for me. What I like about the arts is that you can create anywhere. Piling up rocks on the edge of the beach, a piece of paper and a pencil, snow on a car… It’s all about light and composition. But my favorite place to create is in my thoughts. Talk to my wife Nathalie, who keeps telling me: Cuckoo Jean-Pierre is coming back with us, or most of the time leaves me in my dreams, knowing that either way I’m likely to leave just as quickly in my imaginary creations.