BIOGRAPHY

Richard Deschênes lives and works in Montreal, Canada. After obtaining a bachelor's degree in visual arts (Concordia University, Montreal, 1985), he pursued his studies at the Pratt Graphics Center in New York in 1985-86. A recipient of several grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, he works mainly in painting and drawing. Since 1988, he has presented his work in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Canada, Mexico, China, Spain, Austria, the United States, France, and Japan. His work is in the Prêts d'oeuvres d'art collection at the Musée national des beaux arts du Québec, in the Art Bank of the Canada Council for the Arts, as well as in a number of private and corporate collections.

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ARTISTIC PRACTICE

In general, my work explores the concept of perception and image making processes, while also highlighting image reproduction and transformation. The use of a vast collection of found visual documents, such as encyclopaedia illustrations and newspaper photographs, is at the core of my research. I subsequently enlarge these images in order to reproduce them by way of a complex tracing process (a dot by dot transcription of the original image) or, in regards to press photography, I rework it by applying of collage methods. Since the document “transcription” is labour intensive, it can be understood as meditation on time, not only in terms of the lengthy production process, but also in the sense of a “timelessness” or “suspended time” that it conveys.