Mathieu Laca

Mathieu Laca discovered painting at the age of 17, thanks to the decisive meeting of two teachers from his secondary school who gave him the means to express himself. He created knotted and tortured characters, reflecting the torments of his adolescence, which he painted with broad strokes of charcoal, black ink or even by sculpting metal wire. His works were presented in a first solo exhibition at the Maison des Arts in Laval and marked the first year of his artistic vocation.

He continued his studies in visual arts at CEGEP and in visual arts at Concordia University. After graduating, he distanced himself from the minimalist aesthetic of his peers in order to forge a more personal style, baroque and provocative, focused on the male nude. The muse of the Montreal gay press, he exhibited mainly in galleries in Ottawa and Montreal, until portraiture became at the heart of his practice.

“I like to paint portraits of writers, artists, philosophers, musicians and historical figures who have had an impact on me. I try to translate their psyche, their work, through the boldness of the impasto, the dazzling splashes. I like my portraits to be homages flirting dangerously with aggression, straddling the line between resemblance and disfigurement. I want the viewer to be gripped by a presence that is impossible to ignore, to be rooted to the spot, gripped by the monstrous reality that a look can contain. Because everything is in a face. An entire life is mapped there. Each wrinkle, each palpitation of expression carries within it the trace of this life. Each burst of flesh marks the secret passage of regrets, of silenced words, of errors forgotten and others forgiven, of aborted desires and languid dreams. »

Since his craze for textured portraiture, the popular success of Mathieu Laca's paintings has continued to grow. He exhibited in Toronto in the gigantic space of the Thompson Landry Gallery. Among others, the writer and playwright Michel Tremblay, the actor and host Marc Labrèche as well as the American actor Josh Brolin collect his paintings. His works appear in numerous collections in China, Australia, all European countries as well as the United States. In order to dedicate his dual interest in painting and literature, Mathieu will publish in February a first novel with Leméac editions, the story of which is that of, you guessed it… a portrait painter.