The sky, which was disturbed last week in Montreal by fine black-orange particles from forest fires in the Prairies, has been a major source of inspiration for artists since the dawn of time (obviously). The sky is all about the stars, the sun, the big bang, creation myths, light and the violence of summer storms.
The Canadian sky is known for its immensity, which eats up most of the landscape, and for its colors (the green of the aurora borealis, the black of summer nights, red sunsets, golden sunrises).
It’s our sky that inspired (in part) Montreal artist Marie-Claire Blais to create the works presented at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in her first solo exhibition, Lumières Déferlantes.
The structure of the sky
This morning, the sky was gray and overpowering. The streets of Montreal were noisy and damp, and it was as if the sky had descended to the street, heavy with cloud water.
Marie-Claire Blais’s exhibition is set up in the large room of the carré contemporain, and in the middle, which cuts the space in two, an installation composed of burlap squares painted in the colors of an evening sky cuts through the air like a wave. The artist, who is present to talk about her work, has a deep, soft voice and the quiet energy of an electric storm. She immediately says“I’m overflowing” in front of this monumental work (which is 55 feet long), her largest to date. It’s “a scale [she] wanted to work on for a long time”.
In addition to Blais’s monumental work, created especially for the exhibition and for this space, colorful folded canvases featuring cameos of color stand out from the wall; the Fragments Oubliés.
The folding is uneven, as if shaped by a hand in a dance movement – which Marie-Claire imitates when she speaks, with her hand not holding the microphone. There’s an elegance to her work that, despite the chaotic energy she talks about during the creative process, radiates a pleasant calm, as when the plane breaks through the clouds and flies into the clear sky.
The celestial body
The artist creates her colors all by herself; she controls their texture and viscosity, and refers to the colors in this exhibition as a “celestial [and] carnal color palette”. The sky and the body, with its mechanics and rhythm, interact through the movement of the canvases and the frenzy of Marie-Claire’s work in the studio.
While the exhibition’s visuals are calm and contemplative, the looping soundtrack speaks of the “urgency” of the works’ creation. Recorded in the artist’s studio as she works, sequenced with oscillators, the sounds we hear are amplified to fill the space; brush strokes, brushes, the crackle of paint as it passes through the burlap canvas.
Marie-Claire works in harmony with the chaos of the cosmos. Speaking of the exhibition’s creative process, she says that “the big bang is a great emotion”.
The calm of the pastel colors of the sunset, the frenzy of the work created in the studio, and the blend of the two, it’s a bit like the artist’s interpretation of the myth of the world’s creator, and a journey into the absolute for visitors to the show.
We stop off at Café Aube, on the second floor of the building, because it’s in keeping with the theme and because their gluten-free financier is exceptional. As we leave the Musée des Beaux-Arts, the mist has lifted and the sun is coloring the city green.
Practical info
When is the show? The exhibition is at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from June 20, 2025 to January 4, 2025 /and this summer, between June 30 and September 1, the museum is open every day.
Where? 1380 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
How much? $31 for those aged 26 and over, $15.50 on Wednesday evenings, free for those aged 25 and under, members of aboriginal communities and people with disabilities and their companions.
Enjoy the show!