THE VILLAGE SERIES

It could be called “the Village Series” for that is how I view it. It reminded me of those Japanese wood cuts I admired of small winter villages in their stark tones.

In reality it is a small street in Fabreville on the West end of the Island of Laval, Quebec, where my wife, Francoise Cardinal and I moved after realizing our last place, a Seniors’ residence in Montreal, was not for us… not just yet anyway.

However, the year there (2019) afforded an unobstructed view of Mount Royal that I was able to paint over and over again in all its changes and moods. Now I was doing the same in Laval with “the village”. Like Claude Monet, like Matisse, I had one view from my apartment and many seasons. I made the most of it.

By moving to West Island Laval into a new six story apartment building, we had a sunny top floor apartment. The views were simple, but challenging. Surrounded by trees and golf courses, there were a couple of scenes out the windows that I was determined to master into compositions. I’d have to force my imagination. It meant making abstracted shapes out to the geometric white bungalows that I could barely discern, through the organic trees.

Geometric vs organic… there it was…two strong elements of Formalism. This would be my challenge for the next series, the seasons around, abstracting the scenes and painting them out my own windows. I was very excited by the prospects of this new work. I would be painting what I felt and less of what I was seeing.

-RFM McInnis