A Quarter To Lonely

Pascale Jean

Artist Statement

I am a multidisciplinary artist with a practice focusing on oil painting and photography. In both of my practices, I enjoy depicting the mundane, illustrating personifications of inanimate objects, amplifying details of the human body or creating satirical theatrical tableaux. I communicate to the viewer social oriented messages, touching on concepts relevant to the human body in relation to emotions and social constructs. My visual inspirations stem a lot from cinematography and impressionist painters, one for the innovative and eloquent framing methods, and the other for the expressive brushstrokes and colors. 

With the living subject or the object, I create scenes provoking contemplation, the subject becoming the vessel to showcase emotions. I enjoy creating scenes riddled with subliminal messages or that trigger a strong emotional response, as I see my work as an opportunity to forefront sensations and pose questions rather than to offer clear answers. In the fast paced world we are living in, my work offers a pause and a moment of reflection, as well as an opportunity to relish feelings. My subjects being almost exclusively emotionally driven and represented in a way that makes them unrecognizable, key features being obscured or illustrated in a way that push them away from realism, act in opposition to our current culture in which we find ourselves quantified, qualified and identified at every corner. 

A Quarter To Lonely – Mixed media series

Installation view of the project
Installation View
Installation View
Elbow Gallery Installation view

A Quarter To Lonely is a play on textures, rhythm and sensations. It is an experimentation on the rendition of loneliness through materiality.

As time becomes this fluid and fluctuating notion, the feeling of isolation we may feel in our day to day life becomes amplified by our own nostalgia of time passed. We not only live our routine, but feel it more than ever. A numbness may envelop us, making us feel heavy, but it is through this repetition and introspection that we can find serenity and solace in the present, that we can embrace and appreciate loneliness.

This 4 images series of 60cm x 48cm matte inkjet prints with gouache interventions forefronts soft colors in times of darkness, times where meticulousness supplants spontaneity. The play of textures both in the photographic and painting processes acts as an opposition to the omnipresent perfectionism of representation.

A Quarter To Lonely is the celebration of discomfort, an ode to taking a break and relish feelings in opposition to the fast paced world we find ourselves in

An iteration of A Quarter To Lonely appeared in the Spring 2021 issue of Woo Publications. Follow this link and stop at the pages 44-45 to have a look!

Pascale Jean

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I am a French Canadian artist with a practice rooted in painting and photography. Experimental in my approach, I enjoy playing with colours and mediums while addressing an array of topics, form emotions to the mundane, with a lighthearted or satirical approach to my subject. By the end of my studies in Vancouver, I will have added to my DEC in visual arts a Bachelors in arts, finalized in one of the most beautiful cities in Canada. I will always be thankful of this opportunity, and for the experience of a semester in Paris ECU has made possible for me to complete.
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