Artist
Franco-Ontarian born in 1965, Dominic Besner trained as an architect at the Université de Montréal,
then turned to his true vocation, the visual arts. Rather like the fairytale ending, he has been painting « happily
ever after » for the past ten years. Dominic Besner’s work was originally exhibited in Baie-St-Paul and
Québec City, but today may be viewed in Montréal, Toronto and even in Florida, as part of group or
solo exhibitions.
Upon seeing Besner’s work, the viewer is struck the obvious spontaneity shown in the shapes drawn in one material and affixed in oil pastel spread on with the fingers. Besner enjoys working with pastel and sometimes uses a scratching technique which lends a certain linearity to the material so that underlying layers may be perceived. Scratched lines accompany blended colours or are placed between light and dark shades to increase the visual impact of the work. Dominic Besner’s figuration varies from symoblic to realist. His stable of characters includes women with a stylized or a sharp profile and pallid complexions reminiscent of Venitian Commedia dell’Arte masks. The space suggested by the interplay of colours and light/dark contrast creates constant changes in scale which keep the depth of perspective and various coloured planes in balance. Besner’s work reveals a myriad of influences, from Egon Schiele’s paintings and drawings to those of Gustav Klimt or Leonor Fini. The atmosphere seems to stress the human body, its artificial whiteness, the blackness of features and their sharpened forms, decorative motifs or feline characteristics. Some Besner characters could be kissing cousins of the pasty faces found in certain Toulouse-Lautrec paintings. The artist does use a form of figuration and a style drawn from the grandes dames in hats from the turn of the century, as seen in paintings like Pièces-à-sous, Maillots noirs, or Col à rayures. Yet an the expressionist influence may also be seen in Besner’s faces which resemble some of those portrayed by Munch.
Dominic Besner’s still-lifes, fewer in number than his « portraits », are fashioned with a certain freedom which exudes from the colours and motifs used, along with a sensual note, as seen in the lancelike petals of Nocturnes en pot. A young, self-taugt artist, Besner manages to combine impulsive verve and technique to create extremely colourful art that expresses sensorial pleasure in a dreamlike universe.
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