Geneviève L’Heureux

Passage du Caire — Le carrefour
monoprint 15″x20″ on Rives paper

Hinging on a previous career as an architect, the built domain permeates my printmaking work.

From buildings holding light or disappearing in their own shadow, my work keeps praising these structures. The focus, however, no longer lies on the specific characteristics of buildings but on their effect. In my printmaking work, mundane built structures are celebrated as important anchors for the phenomenal, as solid pillars for our ever-changing perception.

The monoprint technique is well suited to the object of my work. The drypoint, created with the precision and obsession of the architectural drawing, guides the monotype. Then, contrasting greatly with the exactitude or rigor of the drawing, the painterly treatment of the monotype is allowed to take over, just as our phenomenal perception floods the presumed objective eye. The effectiveness of the emotional rendering lies in this balancing act between precision and detail on one hand and gesture and expression on the other.