Spotlight: Canadian Artist Jean-Sébastien Denis Brings an Experimental Approach to His Chromatically Bold New Works

Jean-Sébastien Denis, *Pulsation 22-03* (2022). Courtesy of Galerie Simon Blais.

Every month, hundreds of galleries add newly available works by thousands of artists to the Artnet Gallery Network—and every week, we shine a spotlight on one artist you should know. Check out what we have in store, and inquire for more with one simple click.

About the Artist: Canadian painter, photographer, and video artist Jean-Sébastien Denis (b. 1970) has lived and worked in Montréal since 1993. The artist studied at the prestigious Université du Québec à Montréal, receiving Jacques de Tonnancour graduate award in 1997. As a student, he focused on the integration of art and architecture and went on to complete a number of public sculptures. Over the years, the artist has been included in numerous shows throughout Canada and has been represented by Montreal’s Galerie Simon Blais since 2002. Denis’s work explores what mark-making means and how color and gesture interact. Currently, the artist’s solo exhibition “Chromatic Constructions and Aberrations” is on view at Simon Blais, bringing together a selection of works made this year. The gallery has also released a catalogue that explores the artist’s inspirations and process, including an essay by art historian Anne-Marie Dubois.

Installation view “Jean-Sébastien Denis: Chromatic Constructions and Aberrations” 2022. Courtesy of Galerie Simon Blais.

Why We Like It: On view are seven large paintings on canvas or wood and a dozen smaller pieces. These chromatically dazzling abstract compositions mark an important departure for the artist—primarily composed of acrylic paint, they also include inkjet prints and passages cut and collaged from earlier canvases. They are boldly gestural and more irreverent than Denis’s tightly focused earlier compositions. Viewers who pay a visit to the exhibition should also stop by the gallery’s two other solo shows currently on view by contemporary Canadian artists: Mark Stebbins’ show “Gathered Threads“ and Frédérique Ulman-Gagné’s luminous “Landscapes I Have Never Seen: Second Dialogue.”

According to the Gallery: “Denis’s new paintings…are like fertile terrain with sedimented layers of flat color, overflowing pigments, and cut and glued fragments of older canvases. Each painting tells the material story of a painting in the making. First, Denis sets the canvas aside for a few hours, even a few days—so that the paint can fully saturate the cotton fibers—until the surface becomes like skin, like real pictorial flesh from which the pigment virtually oozes. Then, vigorous brush strokes leave moving swaths of color in their wake, foiling the usual obvious-ness of the repoussoir element, and thus interfering with what—background or form—has precedence over the other. And finally, monochromatic steppes saturated with thick paint pull our gaze deep into the work, captivating us with their materiality,” wrote art historian Anne-Marie Dubois in the exhibition catalogue.

Browse works by the artist below.