yanick Sasseville

Willing to Paint Anything

Since 1998, my artistic practice has been anything but linear. From surrealism to figurative abstraction, to installation and ephemeral art, culminating in my most ambitious project, Exil, which was presented from Quebec to Manitoba between 2013 and 2016. A need to recharge my batteries and the desire to have a more intimate connection with "the other" led me to tattooing, where the client becomes curator, collector and museum in one. Tattooing allows me to use visual language that I didn't think possible with more "conventional" artistic practice. I see this phase as a period of hibernation and research, which has enabled me to explore away from the public eye, with the exception of a few commissions. The period of confinement in 2020 brought me out of this dormant stage. Slowly, I felt the need to portray friends and family from whom I had become estranged. At the time, the only purpose of the exercise was to help me feel close to them, and to share a little love with them as a gift. One thing led to another, and from this therapeutic exercise, a clearer path emerged. Today, the subject seems of little importance to me. All that matters is to share the emotion I feel when confronted with a scene, a model or even an object that may seem totally banal. It's with great freedom that I adhere to the principle of Théophile Gautier, whose conception of art was purely aesthetic, claiming no utility other than its beauty: "Art for art's sake". I think it's fair to say that the impact that artists such as Adrien Herbert or Lilias Torrance Newton of the Beaver Hall Group have had on me can transcend into my work. I work mainly in acrylics and oils, but I also enjoy making small studies in gouache and watercolour.