Renowned for his contribution to the revival of sculpture in the 1980s, Gilles Mihalcean favors a poetic, narrative approach to art. His imaginary, playful constructions combine different artistic styles, reflecting the postmodern movement. By assembling manufactured or found objects, he modifies their original function to divert their meaning. Thwarting the viewer’s perceptions, his works become visual metaphors whose narrative can take as many forms as there are eyes. Strongly attached to his Quebec identity, he seeks to provoke philosophical reflections on the nature of man and his link to the social body.
Born in Montreal in 1946, Gilles Mihalcean has been sculpting for over fifty years. His expertise has earned him both national and international renown. In 1969, he created his first work (Cancer, 1969), which was acquired by the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal the same year. His career as a professional artist was marked by numerous awards and grants. He is the recipient of the Canada Council’s Victor-Martyn-Lynch-Staunton Award (1987), the Jean-Paul-Riopelle Career Grant (2005-2007), the Paul-Émile Borduas Award (2011) and, most recently, an honorary doctorate from Concordia University (2019).
Gilles Mihalcean’s sculptures have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Quebec, Canada, the United States, France and Italy. His work was the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal in 1995. Mihalcean has created numerous public art and art-in-architecture projects that dot the cultural landscape of Montreal and Quebec, including La peur (Place D’Youville, 1993), Monument à la pointe (Pointe-Saint-Charles, 2001), Printemps (McGill University Health Centre, 2014, Paquets de lumière (Quartier des spectacles, 2017) and more recently Androïdes (Domaine Forget de Charlevoix, 2021).
His work can be found in the following collections:
National Gallery of Canada
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art
Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec
The Art Gallery of Windsor
Canada Council Art Bank
Musée national des beaux-arts de Québec (CPOA)
Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec
Hydro-Québec Collection
Ville de Montréal Collection
Patrice and Andrée Drouin Collection
Jacques and Michelle Sénéchal Collection
Roger Bellemare Collection
As well as many private collections in Canada and the United States.
