2023 | PATRICK COUTU - Amers
TORONTO
Feb 17 - Apr 8, 2023
Opening: Saturday, Thursday, Feb 16, 2023 - 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Blouin Division is happy to present Amers, an exhibition of Patrick Coutu's newest works. Occupying three rooms of the gallery, the exhibition includes sculptures, photography and two-dimensional pieces.

Patrick Coutu has focused extensively on the endeavor to unveil the mathematical underpinnings of that which surrounds us, on representing the invisible order that governs our world. With Amers, he presents us with forms that are not altogether resolved, leaving room for a poetics of movement and of change. This lack of precision does not take away from the importance of the underlying structures of what we observe but, rather, shifts our attention towards the effects that those structures have on us. In effect, Coutu sets out to explore the rejection of the rationality of romanticism, leaving room for the sensibility and imagination of the individual viewer. 

The tensions that one experiences when faced with a natural landscape are echoed throughout Amers. The works emanate a playfulness between fragility and solidity, between ephemerality and durability – dualities that reference differences in the longevity of a phenomenon. The rock faces seen in Méandres - which are, in fact, streams of poured ink that were guided by the grooves of crumpled paper - call to mind a geological history much further reaching than our own individual histories. Commonality can be found, however, in the rock’s fissures, which testify to significant events in its lifetime, to a disrupted chronology much like our own: recognition of the self in the other is possible despite disparate chronologies. 

The immensity of the sea in the Marines is a subject that equally contributes to the sense of the sublime that is palpable throughout the entire exhibition and can be felt by the viewer. The sheer magnitude of the ocean is redoubled by the endless aspects it can become. The perennial nature of the sea thus intersects with the ephemerality of its appearance, which Coutu captures through photography. Despite the objectivity associated with the process of photography, the variable nature of the maritime landscape evokes as many distinct and subjective impressions as there are fleeting ripples in the water’s surface. 

The tension between immobility and movement is also visible in the sculptures presented in the exhibition, which reference the juxtaposition of objects deposited and permanently anchored to the sea floor and the fluidity of the water’s surface that effectively obfuscates them. The passage of time has created artifacts of strange forms that don’t call anything in particular to mind. The sculptures are made of the plastic objects of everyday life that act as the canvases on which droplets of sediment have accumulated, compounded by gravity. Ever-vibrating with the force that created them, these sculptures at once evoke a fixed period and the shaping of form by means of time. 

In Amers, Patrick Coutu continues his exploration of space, be it that of the landscape or that occupied by a sculpture. We can discern the order that supports this space and that influences the appearance of the artworks, but it is time itself that becomes the true common denominator of the latter. Whether through the creative process that is selected or the subject that is treated, time makes its presence known and applies its effect on us, such that Amers can be experienced as a moment of suspension in which we can wander.



-Sophie Pouliot, novembre 2022