Theres Fortin

" Emergisme" A New Trend

It has been a real challenge to classify my work, because it is neither abstract nor figurative. Neither is it impressionist, expressionist, cubist, nor any other known technique. Other artists use the same creative process, but as far I know it has no name. So I called it "emergism".

The creative process

"Emergism" combines the technique of non-representative and representative painting. The first step of this creative process is totally underfined; there is no way to plan or guess what the final work will look like. With my palette-knife, I apply random colours blots on canvas. My sole concern is to juxtapose complementary in order to create light and shady areas. Why light and shade? I have no idea at that point in the process. Then I hold the canvas in half-light and I turn it in every way in order to discover figures, moods or forms that could represent a life situation.

The second step takes place in the bright light of halogen lamps in my studio. I sketch the forms I have just seen. The real challenging work now begins ( or is it pleasure of creating).  The composition of the picture emerges under my knife. Bringing out an arm, making it stand out, tousling a figure's hair, and highlighting a face are examples of the precise knife-strokes that gave a figurative shape to a mass of colour blots with would appear rather insignificant to most people.

The best "emerging" works are situations where the painter has limited his/her intervention so that the public can participate in the impression emerging from the work. It is important to give way to the public's imagination. The artist's imagination then merges into large sections of the canvas to produce astonishing and questioning "emergist" works.

The medium

Nowadays oil might seem like an outmoded medium for painting. But my experience in using this medium and my technique have contributed to create, in some of my works, an impression of luminosity close to the luminosity of watercolours.

Moreover, oil paint drys slowly which is an essential quality for my creative process. It allows me to highlight the subjects I have seen in the color blots.

And at the dawn of the third millennium, let me tell you my secret dream: I wish my works will be seen by the collectors of the year 3000. In fact, one of my paintings kept in very good conditions should still astonish art lovers of the forth millennium.