Yechel Gagnon

For the past 30 years, Canadian artist Yechel Gagnon has created a distinctive visual language using plywood as an artistic material to create bas-reliefs. She has developed her own technique of creating custom made plywood with tinted and natural veneers. Her process consists of carving the surfaces, revealing a visual language that transitions between abstraction and representation with those intrinsic to the material. This effect evokes a fictional landscape where land and sea appear before us, where cavernous spaces are excavated and sweeping valleys emerge. One perceives the work as an aerial perspective and then all of sudden the viewer is plunged into a terrestrial realm. An oscillation between the macro and the micro fluctuates before our eyes like fractals. It is the viewer’s interpretation that dictates the scale of what is being seen. These different viewpoints are similar to traditional Chinese painting where one can see many different perspectives intertwine all into one image. Much to many people’s surprise, Gagnon does not use any paint in her work; only wood, obtaining a personal language of mark making that is both sculptural and painterly.

Gagnon’s artistic practice also includes emboss prints, etchings, public art installations, bronze and aluminum sculptures and large-scale ephemeral drawings. Engaging different media has allowed her to nurture a fluid, dialogical process capable of informing and renewing itself across disciplines. Gagnon’s approach employs tools and techniques devised for unfolding, layering and de-layering to unearth imagery from the material at hand. The resulting pieces allude to worlds of dissonant tension and balance, composed of voids as well as signs, of emptiness aside human presence, and of the natural with the artificial. She collaborates with curators, architects, writers, designers, art consultants and music composers to produce works that are distinct to each environment and each project. Her inspirations include Chinese literati painting, Japanese Zen gardens, and various artists such as Lynda Benglis, Tara Donovan, Fabienne Verdier, Pat Steir, Jean-Paul Riopelle and explorer Sarah Marquis and adventurer Miriam Lancewood.

Born in Longueuil in 1973, Yechel Gagnon holds a Master of Fine Arts Degree (Studio Arts) from Concordia University and an AOCAD with Honours in Drawing and Painting from the Ontario College of Art and Design. Gagnon’s works have been exhibited in museums, galleries, artist-run centres, biennales and art fairs throughout Canada, the United States, France and China. She is the recipient of numerous public art projects awarded by the Art and Architecture Integration Policy of the Ministry of Culture and communications of Quebec. One of her latest project is a 140-foot-long bas-relief mural that unfolds in the main building of a medical centre. Her works have also been commissioned for diverse institutions such as universities, cultural and medical centres, places of worship and corporate milieus both in Canada and in the United States. Gagnon is the recipient of numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts de Longueuil and Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, which awarded her the prestigious CALQ Creator of the Year award. She holds a Master of Fine Arts Degree (Studio Arts) from Concordia University in Montreal and an AOCAD with Honours in Drawing and Painting from the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto.