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Le planteur d'arbre

Treeplanting animation

Montre

Ticking Watch

Band Acadian

Grandpapa et grandmaman avec un avion

Marie-Laure avec le canon

grandmaman en relaxation

levitation Winnipeg

Eugene et Emilia Bouchard

Terrebonne Video

Nat and Laila

1959 Isetta

Seven Siblings

La Famille

La conte de Madame Latulipe

La maison paternal

Homage to Andrew Courtnage - Freedom

truck

Homage to Brian Jungen, Montreal

Daniel Barrow Talk

Family and Friends

Ange du St.Boniface

Famille

Oceane

Les Gamines

Jacquelin e's Photo Album

Doris en 1966

La Chanteuse

GPS Map #4

GPS Map #3

VIA, Quebec City

Gabrielle Roy

Louis Riel

Grandpapa et Danny

The Plischkes

Hommage d'Hortense - Sucre

Hommage de Henri Malaison - Fait l'ecrit

Homage de Henri Malaison - Dan

Hommage de Henri Malaison - Parleur

Chateau Frontenac, Quebec City

Chez Germaine, Drummondville, 2006

Micheline et Gilles

ma tante Denise

Les Malaisons 2006

Terrebonne Reunion

Alma

Famille et cheval

chez Jacqueline

Maman, Denise et Carman enfant

Marriage en Jonquiere, 26" x 20"

La Danse

Gerard, mon parrain

Homage to Marc-Aurele Fortin 2- Hochelaga

The Blossoming (after Pellan)

L'eglise Saint Cyriac

Les Clochers du Saint-Cryiac

Yvon & Dorothy Malasion

Dejeuner en Almatoit

Pascale Grandmaison, Montreal

Dollard des Ormeaux

Dessiné par Alfred Laliberté en 1920, ce monument de Dollard et de ses seize compagnons est érigé au parc Lafontaine de Montréal. Le troisième lundi de mai est un jour férié au Québec et rappelle leur sacrifice pour la patrie. Cette Journée nationale des Patriotes commémore aussi les Patriotes de 1837-1838.

Hortensia

Homage to Jacques de Tonnacour - Paysage

When I got your loving letter - Jon Spencer and the Sadies @ The Main Hall

The D-Rangers

Les Papillons

Homage to Marc-Aurele Fortin - Moulin sur la lac St.Pierre

Homage to Arthur Villeneuve - Les Chasseurs

Gps Tracks with Map

Homage to Anselm Kiefer - The Heavenly Palaces

Calixa Lavalée

Fait le Dodo

Danny Chartier

The Violinists Jean and Celine

Various Heads

Country Jam @ The Wheel Club

La famille Massicotte

Parson's Medley

Le Hockey @ Lafontaine

Homage to Keith Haring

Madrigraia @ Place des Arts 2

Madrigaia @ Place des Arts

GPS Drawing, Montreal

The Side Door Coffee House

Project Break

Well, with the baby due in the next few weeks, the project will be taking a breather for two months. Look for some new posts come May. Thank you for all your comments and interest.

James

A Qui Attend

GPS Drawing

Les chaises de Michel Goulet

Le coin de Roy et St.Hubert

Les Cousins

Pour Faveur

Bagg Street Portraits

Anniversaire

Carman, Hortense, Rejean, et Jacqueline

Croix

Henry Malaison

Chez Carman et Gerard

Rej Malaison

Click here to see one of Rej's drawings

Marie-Laure Malaison (Bouchard)

Conte L'Acadie

To see a poupée fabriquée that my friend and I made click here

L'église majestueux

Balcon

Lafontaine

Québec

Attente voracement pour petit déjeuner

Denise et Richard

New School

Beyond Chaos No.7 - Homage to Betty Goodwin

Homage to Appearances Workshop

My Land is Winter, Je Me Souviens

L'iris versicolore

Snow Covered Tree on Rue Dorion

Montreal Jazz Festival (detail)

Les Malaisons

Performance Workshop @ articule

Metro St.Mathieu 3

Metro St.Mathieu 2

Metro St.Mathieu 3

Nancy, Anick and Laïla

Whorlscape - Homage to Caroline Lathan-Stiefel

Shawna Marking Papers in the Sun

Natalie, Laïla and Taoufik

The idea for Contouring Quebec began in 2004 during a drawing workshop I held in Winnipeg, Manitoba, at an artist-run centre called Ace Art. While archiving my drawings of 2002-2003, I realized what I had created was a bio-biographical account of my life in Winnipeg. It included the faces and places that fascinated me, and in its entirety I realized that it was the start of an ongoing library of drawings, or personal nostalgia which described my life as a narrative. Contouring Quebec isa focused collection in its subject, and in many ways will is more comprehensive then anything I’ve done in the past. In some regards, Contouring Quebec is a sequel or a continuation of the biographical account of my environment started in Winnipeg. Using the technique of blind contour to document my journey, Contouring Quebec is a visual narrative of experiencing one of Canada’s most culturally diverse provinces.

Artist’s Statement

Since completing my thesis in Drawing at the University of Manitoba in 1997, my interests in drawing has spanned many disciplines, and I find myself using drawings to describe things in painting, sculpture, and design.

I collect these precious objects that I make as a way of recording my existence. My largest collection of drawings uses the discipline of blind contour drawing, a technique which attempts to capture the fast moving modern world in which we live.

Seurat said that drawing is the probity of art. In this regard, it is no wonder that drawing is one of the first activities that children occupy themselves with. In early childhood, drawing is often a mimetic process, where the child mimics an older sibling or adult’s movements, and quite often the drawings are nothing more than scribbles. These scribbles mimetic properties describe the subjectivity that children and adults use see the world. These drawings describe perception and imperception, or what is real and that which is not. Drawing is a process used to describe that amnesis, or that which can be remembered in the moment where an artist sees and an artist draws.

Blind contour drawing eliminates the amnesis, or memory requirement, that regular drawing creates. In a similar discussion, but about painting photographs, Gerhard Richter states he removes conscious thinking by the act of reproducing what he sees in a photograph. It is much the same with blind contour drawing, where conscious thinking is replaced with hand and eye representation. Following the contours of what is seen, but not looking at what is represented, allows the hand to “feel” the environment.

I collect these drawings of my environment and they become my personal nostalgia. Collecting represents the most rudimentary way to exercise control over the outer world: by laying things out, grouping them, handling them.” I relentlessly draw my surroundings, enjoying the knowledge of this self pleasure, this self-knowing. It is “the joy of finding one’s self that exists outside the world around us” (Baudrillard).