Marie Rioux Land scape CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW walking the viewers to explore the point of the unusual, from which there arises an convergence between figuration and enigmatic little story. abstraction. More specifically, we would like These church steeples dot the landscape all start this interview with Pendant ce temps, an across Quebec, soaring up to the heavens and extremely stimulating work that our readers the gleaming light of the day’s end, vestiges of have already started to get to know in the an era in which the Church dominated our land introductory pages of this article. Would you and our lives. tell us something of the genesis of this These days, endless road works have overrun captivating painting? In particular, how did these same landscapes. Hence the artificial you select such intense nuance of red in order fluorescent red pigment rising to the surface, to achieve such unique sensation of contrast creating a sharp contrast with the surrounding with the background? natural monochrome tones. I enjoy this Marie Rioux: Thanks to the LandEscape team aesthetic confrontation and its symbolic for inviting me back to your magnificent meaning. journal. Your very considered questions have The tones of your recent body of works— be made me engage in true introspection . . . and they intense as in L’heure bleue, and Le début, at times I got a little lost in the process! be they marked out with such thoughtful, (smiles) almost meditative ambiance, as inL'Éboueur In response to your kind comments du ciel — create delicate tension and introducing the first question of the interview, dynamics: how does your ownpsychological I will begin here by pointing out an important make-updetermine the nuances of tones that aspect of my artistic project. you decide to include in your works? In the course of my diverse rambles I observe Marie Rioux: My sole thoughts when attentively and record within myself images of beginning a work concern the tones, hues and striking places. Back in my studio I let my colours. I approach the application of colours brushes go, following diverse avenues of my as a purely retinal aesthetic process – for the imagination. I place no initial constraint or pleasure of one’s eyes – and once this is restriction. Only at the very end do I finalise my connected to the composition it becomes a composition and certain details in order to visual experience. My contemplative gaze is polish the work on the aesthetic level and often attracted by intense, deep colours. This especially to give it meaning. is reflected in my work. The work “Pendant ce temps” (“Meanwhile”) The works selected for my first appearance in refers to the society and environment of my your journal in 2016 focused on the river land. The painting is a contemplative and environment and its fogs, as I had to take a reflective look at Quebec’s vast landscapes. It ferry every day to get to my studio. shows the countryside on a September Today I am exploring new options for afternoon. In this work I chose to bring monochrome hues, and I enjoy mixing colours together a church steeple and elements in red, which initiate different atmospheres. This is symbolising the many traffic signs cluttering what I am most fond of doing. I then project our roads. I love bringing out the unexpected, myself into wide open spaces. These new