Blouin, Joëlle

Technique: Mixed media

Joëlle Blouin was born in Quebec in 1985. As a self-taught artist, she excelled in her chosen profession. In a short time, she has gained an impressive reputation in the art world, both nationally and internationally. Her works are featured in several art galleries in Canada and the United States, as well as in several private and public collections. She has completed numerous commissions for collectors, and often integrated special locations into her work, upon request.

She was attracted to art and aesthetic beauty as a child. This interest led her to pursue interior design in college at Cégep François-Xavier Garneau, and she graduated in 2005. This degree taught her about architecture, and how to play with space, light and colour. Although interior design does involve a dose of creativity, it did not fully meet her expressive needs. Her talent in combination with her desires, brought her to become a painter, her true vocation. Joëlle Blouin searches to marry interior design and architecture in each of her paintings.

Her passion for architecture and design has become her biggest source of inspiration. After trying a variety of methods, she was seduced by oil painting with a palette knife. From her early experiments, she developed her own technique, distinguished by cubic textures carved with the knife. She soon formulated "urban cubism", which would grow to become her signature technique. She mixes her colours directly on the canvas and uses her own photos as inspiration. Her works capture the essence of each of her chosen settings, and the scale of her pieces cannot be overlooked; they command the viewer's attention.

Blouin's success has manifested at an unprecedented speed. Many art lovers attended her first exhibition in Quebec in 2008, and the majority of her paintings were sold quickly. Since 2009, she has devoted herself full-time to her work as an artist. Disciplined and passionate, she obtained a US visa in 2014, which allowed her to set up a studio in California. She feels privileged to be able to create and exhibit her work internationally in various art shows and renowned galleries. Although the artist's life led her to travel for inspiration, Blouin regularly visits Quebec, as she loves her hometown!

Artistic approach

The energy given off by a city or an urban environment is undeniable. I have always loved observing urbanity. I take a moment to analyze the types of architecture, the way the light reflects on different materials and textures, observe the atmosphere and how people interact. Each country, province, state, city, town and neighbourhood has its own identity, and that is primarily what I'm trying to capture. Sometimes my sketches and a few keywords accompany a series of photographs for inspiration.

My work is part of the current state of modern life in the era of globalization, communication and new technologies that play a predominant role. In search of power, the human race appropriates an urban hierarchy, and identity then emerges.

In this sense, I believe that to designate the urban landscape as the subject of my research comes from the desire to observe, analyze and interpret the world that fascinates me so much. To inspire myself, I travel and I permeate all the elements that may influence my creation. I build my paintings with a palette knife using oil paint, paying attention to the effects of light on urban textures, then combine these with transparent colours to overlap. "Urban cubism" makes sense in the evolution of my creations through my use of cube-like shapes. I leave room for the imagination and imperfect abstraction in my work to show that the aesthetic beauty can emerge from a simple environment. Sometimes chaotic, peaceful or mysterious, each of my works must be viewed differently. When my work captures your gaze, a new adventure begins, and beauty prevails.