À fleur d'écorce (At the Bark’s Surface)

À fleur d’écorce (At the Bark’s Surface) invites viewers to discover a quiet world, between the folds of textured surfaces and the lightness of what clings to them. Forms reminiscent of bark or rock mingle with white filaments and veils of colour.

Begun in 2009, the work was revisited in late 2025 and completed in 2026, following an artist residency in the Mingan Islands. Acrylic and pencil on canvas transformed the earlier textures, bringing together translucent layers and drawn contours.

The pale lichens observed on the archipelago’s trees inspired the finishing touches. Their delicate, lace-like filaments informed the interwoven white lines that follow the textured forms or seem to drift away from them. This meeting of matter shaped by time and the delicacy of living things continues the exploration at the heart of the Stratis collection.

In each of its four orientations, a fragment of bark may become a landscape, and interwoven lines may hint at a shelter or a presence. The eye can then wander between the filaments, follow a passage, and let a story take shape beyond what the canvas reveals.