Ernest
Jolicoeur
describes himself as “a builder drawn to the problems
of painting.” With a technique similar to one used
by late Modernist painter Elizabeth Murray, he paints
on composites of multiple panels of canvas, wood and plastic
laminate, all with handmade supports. Concerned with process,
labor, renovation and material, the construction and positioning
of his armatures is hardly separate from the process of
making his own acrylic paints and the physical act of
painting.
Grouping
his vibrant paintings like sculptural building blocks,
Jolicoeur activates a harmonious and highly informed but
unpredictable relationship between the “armatures”
and the wall on which they hang. By obscuring boundaries
of shape, value, color and depth, he reaches a new ambiguity
in the traditional modernist approach to figure-ground
relationships. By exploring both sculptural and painterly
aspects in his work, a visual dichotomy of controlled
graphic edges, expressive contrast and rhythmic strokes
of heavy color give rise to an active and engaging experience.
Jolicouer
received his BFA from Rhode Island College and graduated
from the Yale School of Arts with a Masters of Fine Arts
in Painting and Printmaking. He was the 2006 recipient
of the Artist’s Resource Trust Foundation Grant
and was a nominee for the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award.
His work was featured in a solo show at m du B, F, H &
g in Montreal, Canada in cooperation with Feature Inc.
NY and also in the Silverstein Gallery in New York. Most
recently, in a group show ‘Then and Now’ at
Rhode Island College’s Bannister Gallery.
