MARYSE CHARTRAND

Blown, slumped and cast glass

Vernissage Sunday, June at 2 p.m.

Chromatique emerges from Maryse Chartrand’s fascination with colour and installation. In this exhibition, she showcases selected works comprised of several glass pieces and reveals her enthusiasm for distinctive colour combinations combined with the power in numbers.

It took Maryse Chartrand a long time to embrace glass art. A long detour through a 25-year career in communications. In 2004, during an introductory course in glass blowing, she began to consider the idea of becoming a glass artist. She loved getting out of her head to reclaim the gestural, swapping ideas and words for matter and breath.

In 2010, she decided to return to the classroom, or rather to the atelier, for a full-time three-year glass art program. In the spring of 2013, she graduated from the Centre des métiers du verre du Québec (Espace verre).

Since then, she has devoted herself full-time to her art.

In her approach, Chartrand has the curious impression of having a dialogue with glass about wonder, a feeling from which each new series emerges. Sometimes it’s glass’s ability to suggest weightlessness that fascinates the artist, sometimes its vivid way of conveying color, sometimes it’s incredible ability to freeze movement.

This wonderment dialogue is now evolving into works that deploy in space. This exploration adds a whole new dimension to her quest: the power in numbers and space.

Chromatique is the artist’s first solo exhibition devoted almost exclusively to installation works.

Maryse Chartrand’s glass pieces are found in private collections around the world as well as in the Musée des métiers d’art du Québec, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal.