Patrick Chevalier

Statement

I have come to understand that art is a personal expression of existence in the context of our perspective in space and time. It is objectively a by-product of process. An artist creates paradoxical objects that sit between reality and illusion. While the art object exists, it has no intrinsic significance but to the beholder. It is the beholder that imparts to it a subjective value, positive, negative or indifferent. Its existence may be perceived as real but its purpose is illusory since it has to be interpreted by an extant for it to hold meaning.

Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” and by extension I like to quip “I think therefore I create”. I make art because of my need to exist, but it is also to assimilate and express the experience. On a personal note, it helps me to work through existential thoughts. The process affords me the room to move forward and help me reduce the anxiety of thinking about existence. I create art because of the struggle to find this clarity and while I find comfort in making art, by extension I am charting a topography of my course in the fabric of existence.

I am a multidisciplinary artist. This approach to creation that I readily adopted affords me flexibility and the liberty of my expression. I am open to using any material as a medium and any media in order to bring depth and meaning to my observations of life and into the works that express them. In this way I also find it necessary to compartmentalize my works within productions entities. In some sense this is a way to distance the modes of expression form one another. As Patrick Chevalier I engage in a more traditional and meditative approach to creation through classical techniques in drawing and painting, and I have a special fondness for the medium of encaustic. As PatChe I prone design, illustration, collage and digital art production because of the availability and the economy of the material for production, as well as for the vibrancy and accessibility in the underling expression.

But whichever way it is expressed my hope is that this art I produce will resound for the audience and it will find a home.

Patrick Chevalier

Exhibitions and Work in Progress

2015-present
Exit Strategy

Virtual Exhibition: Photo mashup - http://www.xobdox.com/en/che/exit-strategy:
« Exit Strategy is a digital serial image repository and offshoot from the creation of Frame-One. The repository contains photo-collages and photo mashups that I have created using personal photo and images combined and mashed up with current event visuals commercial impressions from the web ecosphere. It presents a decontextualized fusion of the personal image and public image space representing a virtual disruption and recontextualization of meaning.

2014-present
Frame One

Virtual Exhibition: Illustrated poems, prose and short stories - http://www.xobdox.com /en/che/frame-one-complete
« Frame-One » is a set of 9 framed story boards created in digital and traditional mediums. The series which was inspired by automatism and featured photo mashups and collage as well as personal automatist writings has developed into a periodic and episodic collaborative publication. Guests are invited to collaborate with me to produce short art storyboard for the general audience. http://www.xobdox.com /en/che/frame-one-complete

2005-present
Human Shrine

Serie of mixed medium and encaustic on panel and paper. Personal collection. – Montreal, Toronto

1995-present
N.o.M: Nature de la Multiplicité

Mixed medium series on mixed supports 6100 / 10 000 works. Personal collection – Canada and abroad. A virtual collection at www.patche.ca.

1999
The Gift.

Traditional Oil on canvas with wax varnish. Collection of the Canadian Blood Agency. – Ottawa, ON. Commission work.

1992 &1993
« Düd Reinjes : My Örange Glögs » et « Düd Reinjes : Retrospective » Groupe exhibition CaféX Gallery. Concordia University, Montreal, QC.

Contributed Works: Sculpture and multidisciplinary readymade, photography and in Situ art. Group exhibit under the pseudonym Düd Reinjes as: Patrick Chevalier, Alan Sutt et Sean Miller à la Galerie CaféX