Judith Bellavance - Peintures, 2000-2005

Les ayant certainement, 2000
acrylique sur bois, acrylic on wood, 61 x 61 cm

Et sept et trois et un, 2000
acrylique sur bois, acrylic on wood, 61 x 61 cm

Inoffensive, 2000
acrylique sur bois, acrylic on wood, 61 x 61 cm

Se grava indélébile, 2001
acrylique sur bois, acrylic on wood, 61 x 61 cm

Litanie en bouche, 2001
acrylique sur bois, acrylic on wood, 61 x 61 cm

Ce moment-là et toujours, 2003
acrylique sur bois, acrylic on wood, 61 x 61 cm

Sourde pensée, 2002
acrylique sur bois, acrylic on wood, 61 x 61 cm

Lui fallait trouver, 2002
acrylique sur bois, acrylic on wood, 61 x 61 cm

Précautions jalouses, 2003
acrylique sur bois, acrylic on wood, 91,5 x 91,5 cm

Se calme, se tait, 2003
acrylique sur bois, acrylic on wood, 91,5 x 91,5 cm

Cela de rapprochement, 2004
acrylique sur bois, acrylic on wood, 91,5 x 91,5 cm

Magnifiques défaillances, 2004
acrylique sur bois, acrylic on wood, 91,5 x 91,5 cm

Parmi ses propices, 2004
acrylique sur bois, acrylic on wood, 91,5 x 91,5 cm

Les… me manquent, 2005
acrylique sur bois, acrylic on wood, 91,5 x 91,5 cm

Prodiguant des affinités, 2005
acrylique sur bois, acrylic on wood, 91,5 x 91,5 cm

C’est sur de simples carrés de bois qu’un enjeu toujours réitéré prend lieu et forme. Témoignant de sa présence insistante, les tableaux se déploient autour de cet enjeu comme s’il était le point fixe de leur spirale. Entre le psychique et l’organique, la pensée et la main, l’artiste et l’objet, il se joue, se conjugue, s’évade, s’expose, s’interroge.

Ces tableaux constituent de véritables espaces d’intimité, chacun abritant une pensée, une émotion, une intuition, un rêve, une aventure, et peut-être même un secret. À cet égard, les titres – minutieusement choisis par l’artiste et dignement apposés aux tableaux tels des « titres de noblesse » – semblent vouloir aider à élucider le mystère : enclin à quelques provisoires, enfin, raison splendide, flagrant son secret, tous ils tendent vers quelque chose. Et comme tout ce qui compose l’œuvre de Judith Bellavance, ce qui nous est donné à voir, c’est l’élan, le geste, l’aspiration. L’origine et l’ultime destination de ces espaces pulsionnels pourraient bien être aussi indicibles que le sens même de l’existence. Où en seraient-ils justement un reflet?

Colette Tougas

In her new series of paintingssuperbly titled “Au troisième suffire (Thrice enough)”, Judith Bellavanceproposes spaces punctuated by axes and oblong figures whose pictorial texture callsforth an interior world that is in turns, primary, cerebral and telluric. Oureyes are drawn into these utterly dream-like paintings to experience differentstages of a symbolic journey.

In a previous series, the artist hadworked with 61 x 61 cm. shapes; here she has increased her work surface to 91.5x 91.5 cm. However, this physical expansion coincides with a thematic reversal,as each painting presents a single “object” where before many cohabited. Theobject of this new investigation would appear to be the world inside, as if theartist’s gaze had closed itself in and started looking inward to explore itsown mysteries and vicissitudes. This enigmatic journey takes us past secretcells where various states of latency, gestation, openness, waiting orwithdrawal oscillate between overflow and restraint, a tension that creates adynamic relationship with the work.

This tension is first emphasized bythe distance imposed through lack of perspective, leaving us, as it were, onthe threshold, and second by the impression of being out of synch, both inspace and time, with the main event. Seams, splits, slits, corridors, channelsand cocoons—all these passageways have been, or will be, struck by lightningbut we will not see it. But how does one disclose something felt but not seen?How does one give shape to something perceived from within if not by showingthe premises and the outcomes, the before and after, the state of things?Therefore, these paintings could be considered as excerpts from the psyche,itself understood as an experience of the real, which allow us to suggestwithout revealing, to communicate without betraying, conveying “the greatestjoy and the greatest pain… so commingled as to be indefinable, a single entitybut unnameable for lack of a word.” 2

This new series also allows us tosee continuity in Judith Bellavance’s artistic approach. While her prior seriesseemed to be about impulsion, yearning and desire, this work seems more aboutan emotional nomadism embodied in sensual colours, in the transparent stagesand layers of the work (what the artist refers to as a clemency rather than a pentimento)and in the many emotional stances suggested by the titles—so close to alibis,excuses, blame—almost ready to confess but not quite.

Colette Tougas