2025 | FRANÇOIS LACASSE
CONTINGENCIES
TORONTO
Jan 16 - March 1, 2025

**François Lacasse**, *Untitled*, 2024,
Acrylique et encre sur toile / Acrylic and ink on canvas,
60” x 75”

Whenever possible, we love to predict the future. If the forecast calls for rain, in comes the laundry from the line and out comes the umbrella. But what if predictive data isn't available? What if all that’s left for us to do in a situation is to react?

Though we develop routines to help us mediate our anxieties and maximize control, there will always be an unsettling degree of randomness in our lives. And painting can be a kind of life lesson in this respect. What do we do when things don’t go to plan? Do we let our insecurities, our lack of control, deny us the unexpected virtues of chance?

There is an important element of contingency in the paintings presented here. Several elements are relatively controlled: the design of the poured forms, the relatively organized relief. But the ultimate aim is to set up conditions that will allow colour to unfold in a haphazard way. If there is a set of pre-considered gestures, it exists only to provoke the unpredictable.

This approach can be seen as a way of studying fluid dynamics; but it is also a means of foregrounding that which is beyond the realm of will or rationality. The painted object becomes the receptacle for spontaneity and a reminder not to be overcome so much as amazed by the result of relaxed expectations and relinquished control.

François Lacasse - Contingencies