My artistic endeavours have always been guided by the same principle:  follow one’s instinct and open the flow of expression.

I first explored watercolours, drawing my inspiration from nature’s diversity. Then human trees took shape and nourished my imagination for a while. Quebec’s wide open spaces brought me to use unusual formats, inspired by panoramic photographs from the beginning of the century. These horizontal formats quickly developed into a vertical plane, which has dominated to this day.

Over the course of a one-year stay in Europe, I was drawn to old walls, which eloquently illustrate the passage of time. In Belgium, I had fun following the traces left by time on façades or in ruins, and drawing the vegetation that slowly takes hold of ancient buildings. I became caught up in this game and let myself be guided by these old walls and all they conjured up in my artist’s eye.

From a structural point of view, exploring the texture, colour and shape of old stones brought a new dimension to my work and prompted me to make greater use of a dry brush technique. Upon returning from this sabbatical year, a brief incursion into engraving made me decide to experiment with water colours in order to obtain the textural effects I was looking for. Time, the wearing effect of time and the memory of time on stones excited my imagination. Whereas walls often obstruct, confine or enclose, for me they suddenly became a reflection of history and a reminder of the passage of man and time. It is the memory of time that I try to reproduce through the richness of superimposed pigments, as an illustration of my premise, of the story I am weaving through different layers of washes and brushstrokes. But it is also a space where onlookers are left to reinvent the story as they see it.

At the moment, I am trying to incorporate the textures I have discovered by painting old walls into other subjects – penguins, polar bears and geese. Rendered in monochrome, the result evokes the art of certain ancient engravings. From an old wall, the subject evolves and takes on another form of expression, trying more and more to free itself from the concrete, from line and form. Miniature trees take shape, and I again find myself working with a theme that has always been close to my heart. They take root easily on works in a vertical plane and against abstract backgrounds that are no doubt reminiscent of those imprints that time has left on walls.

Walls now underlie in my aesthetic the themes I have selected for my artistic expression. Time, the test of time on objects, the passage of time in man and my exploration of these themes in watercolours in order to express subjects have now become a major influence on my work.

Lorraine Fortier, Watercolourist