Claudel Lauzière Vanasse
Sur le patio de la voisine
2017
Inkjet print on Lasal Photo Matte paper
Original work
87 x 115 cm
MRC de Drummond Collection
Location
235, rue Heriot, Drummondville
Description of the work
Sur le patio de la voisine is a vibrant and summery work evocating one of the artist’s childhood memories. It is part of a series created during his university studies, when Claudel Lauzière Vanasse explored issues related to identity and different artistic disciplines. Seeking to convey the idea that identity is plural and perpetually redefined and may be made up of contradictory elements without losing any of its power, he creates works that merge acrylic painting, photography and digital arts. At first glance, the composition may upset the viewer because of the relationship between a rather organic mass and more geometric, rectilinear elements. This overlapping of completely different realities yields a coherent whole, especially owing to an echo of colours bordering on kitschy. The result is a hybrid work which, by questioning the definition of traditional techniques, examines its own status.
Claudel Lauzière Vanasse
About the artist
Claudel Lauzière Vanasse was born in Drummondville in 1993. He holds a bachelor’s degree in visual and media arts from Université du Québec à Montréal and a master’s degree in visual arts from Université Laval. He also studied at Beaux-Arts de Paris. His practice is chiefly focused on pictorial works and digital art. He is interested in issues related to identity, gender, hybridity, the status of the art object and the relationship between social codes and those specific to each artistic technique.
The artist has distinguished himself since the beginning of his career and is the recipient of several prizes, scholarships and awards, including the Tremplin scholarship, part of the Soutien à la pratique artistique des jeunes program led by the city of Drummondville, as well as the excellence and cultural involvement scholarship handed out by the Coopérative de solidarité artistique de la MRC de Drummond (AXART).
Since 2019, he has taught visual arts at Cégep de Drummondville while pursuing his career as an artist. He is also involved in the region’s art scene and is a project manager at the Grantham Foundation for the Arts and the Environment. His work has been featured in various solo and group exhibitions in Québec and Paris. His work is part of private and public collections, including those of the city of Drummondville, MRC de Drummond and Cégep de Drummondville.
Artistic approach
Claudel Lauzière Vanasse’s work is, above all, a drive to explore the different manifestations of hybridity from an identity perspective. In 2017, he began to delve into the sense of shame that stems from homosexuality and the different creative acts that can overcome it.
Studying his relationship to shame fuels his creative process by establishing a context for work and exploration that is more liberated than ever before. With that in mind, he dabbles in various artistic disciplines to ultimately tend towards a mixed technique. His works become the outcome of pictorial explorations that he photographs with a digital camera. He then modifies the images to create an original composition that he prints in a single large-format copy. As hybrids, his works would not exist without the combination of different techniques.
In this way, he develops a more personal and assumed aesthetic that shares certain elements with pop and camp. The result is a series of works that appear clean and neat, even extremely polished, with a predominance of bright and attractive colours and marked contrasts, notably geometric figures juxtaposed with enticing curved forms.
His practice challenges established codes and rebuffs all labels. We understand that human beings, like works of art, are in contradiction. Far from representing an incoherence from the artist’s perspective, the paradox is what gives rise to originality and uniqueness. Claudel Lauzière Vanasse’s body of work can thus be perceived as a gentle affirmation of identity.