Syncretism: the fruit of an evolving encounter
The artists Michelle Boulay and Étienne Saint-Amant in front of Syncrétisme in downtown Sherbrooke.
Share November 15, 2020 3h00 Update at 8h00 Share Syncretism: the fruit of an evolving encounter
Andréanne Beaudry La Tribune Through the window at 30 Wellington Street North, Sherbrooke residents can come and enjoy the last hours of an exhibition of the collaborative work of artists Étienne Saint-Amant and Michelle Boulay. The Syncretism canvas, accompanied by a short poem, has been on display from Friday until Monday.
“In life, I am a person who provokes meetings”, launches Michelle Boulay. Originally, the photographer did not know the professional artist in technological arts at all, but a few of her friends did.
Intrigued, she became more and more interested in her work as an artist. “I was really impressed by his career, but also by his work and all the approach around his works. I find its scientific and calculated side, which is not my field at all by the way, to be mysterious and fascinating. “
Michelle Boulay therefore contacted him quite simply on social networks without any expectations. After a few meetings, over a coffee or during a winter hike, the two artists got to know each other.
A photo: the first step before Syncretism
The collaborative work was born from a photo of Michelle Boulay taken at the top of Mount Royal. “As soon as I got back, I did the treatment. In fact, I edited it in the symmetrical, double exposure style, but in post-processing. I really played with the colors, and all of a sudden, I said to myself that I could send it to Étienne in order to offer him to add his vision and his techniques from the work ”, explains- she does.
“His image was a perfect work. So I was wondering how I was going to encroach on this universe by integrating my imagery, ”says Étienne Saint-Amant.
The addition of Étienne Saint-Amant, thanks to a precise system and a unique mathematical formula, finally created a “river” effect to the Montreal landscape in the photo.
“Montreal is still a symbol of town planning and desolation at the same time. For me, a city is a symbol of activity and communication, ”he says.
Étienne Saint-Amant continues his reflection by emphasizing that society is in a way experiencing a “collective neurosis” at present. “I like to describe it that way because I really think we, as a company, are missing our pumps in the current prioritization process. “
This evolving work is also described by the two artists as being a collective chaos. “At the same time, I saw urbanity and the rumbling earth. This kind of disaster that is happening to us all now, ”briefly summarizes the photographer.
The physical piece of Syncretism is also presented with a poem on the same theme.
“It was the last step in our collaboration, but the one where we had really created something together. Because that was not the case before, ”she emphasizes.
In the heart of nature, they then composed the poem that we find displayed in the window on Wellington Street North near the physical work.
“I like to say that our work is multimodal, because it is a mixture of poetry, photography, imagery and image processing, and mathematical art too,” concludes Étienne Saint-Amant.
