Chiguer Art Contemporain is proud to present a two-person exhibition bringing together the works of Dan Brault and Graeme Patterson, two artists connected by a friendship that began during their residency at the 26th International Symposium of Contemporary Art in Baie-Saint-Paul in 2008. Since then, a dialogue has developed between their practices, shaped by shared affinities: an interest in nature, animals, as well as video games and certain references drawn from popular culture. Unaware of this connection at first, the gallery began representing both artists in 2015, then under the name Galerie 3, where they took part in the inaugural exhibition. Conceived over more than a year, this duo project creates a space of encounter where their approaches, one rooted in painting, the other in installation and moving images, intersect and respond to one another, giving form to a shared territory shaped by friendship, memory, play, and a sensory experience of the world.
The first gallery space features a solo presentation by Dan Brault, showcasing his latest paintings. His recent practice is rooted in an exploration of the non finito and the image in a state of becoming. Built from restrained palettes, these works unfold as calm, introspective spaces, where images framed within bubble-like forms appear suspended. Brault allows traces of the process to remain visible: sketches, marginal areas, a graffiti-like aesthetic, embracing a degree of irresolution within the work.
This body of work continues the Folklore series, in which the artist had already begun to shift his visual language, moving away from a strictly abstract approach to incorporate an aesthetic closer to illustration and comic art. In these more expansive works, motifs, figures, and animals unfold within compositions structured by a palette defined in advance. While the two bodies of work share a similar formal logic, they differ in tone: where Folklore presents a rich and abundant visual vocabulary, the recent works favor restraint and a more pared-down visual language.
In the second exhibition space, the gallery presents Graeme Patterson’s immersive environments, which often take autobiographical places as their point of departure, transforming them into fictional spaces that oscillate between reality and fable. With Deer Crossing, an interactive work combining 3D printing and stop-motion animation, the artist stages a deer caught in a loop of interactions inspired by video games. This encounter between human and animal creates an improbable dialogue, activated by the viewer, in which animals emerge as ambivalent figures, revealing the ways in which humans project their own narratives onto the living.
This line of inquiry continues in a new work featuring a cat navigating a constrained environment that it transforms into a playground. Through a playful, fragmented aesthetic, Patterson explores relationships of dependency between humans and domestic animals. This work is presented alongside his House Abstraction sculptures, which introduce a more introspective dimension: miniature architectures that become dreamlike spaces, where the notion of home is marked by strangeness and solitude.
