Biography
"As a painter, you must follow your heart, not the whims of fashion, if you are to develop your own style and keep your passion alive. In order to grow as an artist, you can't let your work be determined by how it will sell. Naturally, like many artists, I have done commisioned portraits, but that was mostly early in my carreer. I don that only very rarely now."
Louise Kirouac comes from a family of artistts : her father, a native of Brittany and a graduate of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris , is involved in the theatre; two brothers are painters like her. It was her oldest brother, Paul-Tex Lecor, who introduced her to painting. She has lived all her life in Brownburg, her roots deep in the land of her ancestors. Before she fell in love with Quebec heritage, she painted portraits among other things. Today, she paints wilderness landscape as well as urban and street scenes of Quebec . But her preferred subject is preserving the momory of the villages ans countryside of Quebec by trying to capture the essence of their features. Painting allows her to visit and explore every region of the province. And yet it is the people she meets along the way who bring her the most pleasure. Taking the time to talk with the inhabitants of the villages she visits gives her a better understanding of their love for land.
She has great respect for the subjects she paints. She faithfully reproduces the countryside, villages and especially the architecture that is so characteristic of Quebec dwellings, occasionally embellishing certain elements with the colours of long ago. She is always careful to accurately identify each nonimaginary site or village she paints.
"I think it's important to paint houses. They are part of our heritage. People need to discover these treasures that are ours. Through my paintings, I give them that chance. I try to find the angle and composition that will bring out the best aspects of my subjects. This is my contribution to the preservation of our culture."
For Louise Kirouac, finding a subject is like a treasure-hunt. She crisscrosses the province, accompanied by her life partner and sometiness by other artists, constanly on the lookout for an ideal spot, such as the Charlevoix region with its vistas of sea, land and mountains, or the Saguenay with its fjord and cliffs. The Beauce, the Bois-Francs region, the lower Saint-Lawrence, the Gaspe, all these areas offer the artist a mosaic of tremendous deversity : vast stretches of rolling hills; long, winding roads; farms; old ancestral dwellling and always, the villages with their tall church steeples glinting in the sun. Everything is there.
Sometimes, she paints the same subject from different angles and at different times of the year. Each season has its own charms. And each rendition reveals a new facet of the same subject, thus creating a new work.
Louise prefers wide open spaces. Books and photos rarely inspire her, although she does use them as reference material."I am always disapointed by photos. They never reveal emotion. You have to learn how to look before you can capture the atmosphere of your subject. The artist finds inspiration on the move. The painter might pass by a church tower, a public square, or a farm a hundred times before inspiration suddenly strikes. Perhaps the eye is caught by the way a ray of light lingers on a barn roof or by the brillant colours of a freshly-painted window shutter. Suddenly the artist will get out her easel of her drawing board and immortalize a facade. These occasions also offer her the opportunity to meet the locals. Pereferably in the morning, for that is when she does her best work. Paradoxically, the light is at its best in the evening.
The sketches take shape on the spot. When inspiration strikes, the soul of a village is captured on canvas. When Louise goes on multiday expeditions, she does several rough skectches without completing any. She delves deep inside herself to fully explore the source of her inspiration, leaving the area when her emotions are satured ans her energy sapped. Back in her studio, she enlarges on what he has sketched."I have so much stored up that I even dream about it at night. Sometimes, I might look at the sketch for days and feel nothing. If inspiration doesn't come, you have to prepared to abandon the canvas."
Like other painters, Louise would like to be able to reproduce everything before the deep roots of memory are eroded by modern development. Many regions have fared quite well. The Beauce and the lower Saint-Lawrence have not been overly spoiled by rampant modernism."When man builds, he loses a little of his heritage. We have no choice but to accept progress and denaturization. But we must always remain proud of our own little corner."
Marc de Roussan, editor
(Collection Multi Art Ltée, 1999) |
