Eastport artist Arthur Cadieux will be the featured artist at the Yvette Torres Gallery in Rockland, Maine from May 24th to June 23rd. The event will mark a life-time achievement of 25 one-man shows, in the US and Europe. The artist who considers himself a Downeast Expressionist, will offer a minimum of 20 works on canvas and paper entitled “the Edge of Spring.”
Each large landscape is taken from Downeast imagery and reveals nature about to shed its winter stillness before warming up to its inevitable animation in the changing spring light. Cadieux’s expressive style observes nature in anticipation, nature in readiness for change.
Speaking of the series Cadieux remarks, “I use Downeast images as a pretext to create the paintings within me. I use nature as a jumping off place to make those feelings within come alive in the work, sometimes even disregarding the rules of good taste in order to create a successful painting.”
Heightened color and unmistakable rhythm are clearly identifying features of the work. Color choice shapes the mood of the paintings and also creates movement of the eye in and out of the picture plane. Cadieux’s use of grey as an underpainting as well as on the surface functions as a neutral that sets off the color to intensify the emotion. “I want the color to proclaim the paintings, to say this is nature on the verge of coming alive out of the Downeast grey. I want those feelings to project an explosion of emotion, of passion,” Cadieux explains.
The rhythm in the work is supplied by jazz which he listens to most often and dances to brush in hand. For this series he also added Stravinski, Satie, and Copeland to the mix. Feeling the rhythm in music helps Cadieux find a new way to look at the familiar, to transform rather than record what he remembers of the images that he paints. Working together, the music, its rhythm, and the paint, help him create.
Of his process the 69 year old painter explains, “I spend everyday in the studio working, slogging through the chaos and destruction of the work to bring it back into balance and clarity.” For Cadieux that is the way to find that voice that is authentically his own “that expresses the familiar, but is still fresh and spontaneous” while at the same time speaks with authority gained from mastering the medium and being careful that his intention is made clear in its execution.
He holds a Bachelor’s Degree and a Masters Degree in Fine Art.
He is a member of the Eastport Gallery and also shows his work at the Eastport Breakwater Gallery.
The Yvette Torres Gallery of Fine Art , 21 Winter Street, Rockland, ME, will host a reception for Arthur on Friday, June 7th from 5 to 8PM.
