Florence Victor

“For your bow is bent in vain

if you have no aim to direct your arrow."

Alberti, Painting

Find an anchor. Stay connected to it throughout the work. Let the images, shapes and colours flow. Write them on the board. Cover, trace, construct, deconstruct, doubt, let it show through, keep the thread. Rewrite. Wait. Look. Think. Destroy if necessary. Be in the board. Be in the logic of the board which is different each time but each time linked to the other boards. Wait. Look. Make choices.

Florence Victor lives and works in Montreal. After training in theatre (acting, UQAM), she left for Paris where day after day, she frequented museums. In front of a sketch in raw clay by Carpeaux, at the Musée d'Orsay, it was a shock; she discovered what she had sought until then in theatre: intensity, commitment, communion, density. She then developed an interest in sculpture and, back in Montreal, learned welding. She entered sculpture at Concordia University with the intention of creating large steel structures that were both imposing and fragile. A combination of circumstances led her to the painting department where she would find her calling.

Urbanity – construction, deconstruction – which was at the heart of his approach in the early years, has remained but in a metaphorical way. In his paintings, it is a question of monumentality but also of faults, fragility and imbalance. Inspired by Russian theater and literature, his pictorial work is a reflection on the human condition: fragility of life, love, faults, ruptures, solitude and hope. His work has always remained linked to these two poles – urbanity and literature – finding materials, structure and rhythm there.