Jacques Hurtubise

Jacques Hurtubise, painter (born 28 February 1939 in Montréal, QC; died 27 December 2014 in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia). He studied at the École des beaux-arts de Montréal. A grant in 1960 enabled him to spend time in New York and become acquainted with the art of the abstract expressionists, and he was there for much of the 1960s. Hurtubise's energy-filled canvases reflect a combination of his personal experience and the forces of nature. In the early 1960s he began using the hard-edge technique, producing a unified surface with well-defined edges. Geometric patterns and repeated motifs combine with controlled "splashes" of paint to produce an effect of a foreground that recedes into an emerging background. In 1967 his research into the effects of light led him to produce fluorescent canvases and, later, neon works. In 1970, the principal structure of his works became the square, and in 1977 he began to use shapes and chromatic contrasts on a neutral background to produce linear motifs, evoking abstract landscapes (Takarakas, 1979). These "spontaneous" works combined impulse and rigour.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the superimposed movement became spread across the surface of the canvas. These works are characterized by a central figure contained in form and shape that hovers over a labyrinth of colours that are rendered through rich gestural expressionism. A sense of fluidity and retinal vibrations emerge from these artworks that are full of dynamism.