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<\/a>Claude Tousignant, Verticales blanches et noires,\u00a01962, acrylic on canvas, 64″ x 68\u201d<\/p>\nPhenomenological art, best demonstrated in the stark minimalist canon, eviscerated the confessional nature of Abstract Expressionism, reducing the presence of the artist\u2019s brushstroke to a series of geometries devoid of subjectivity. Painting and sculpture, to artists such as Frank Stella, Donald Judd, and Sol le Wit, became a conceptual means to confront the often-rigid barriers between institution and display, audience and maker. Minimalism became a pointed reflection of a viewer\u2019s essential and psychosomatic relationship to the plastic arts, and how these spaces for exhibition (or an artist\u2019s subversion of it) can engender a peculiar experience for each individual. As an aesthetic manifestation of such concerns, uncomplicated shapes such as squares, rectangles, and triangles become the formalistic infrastructure for the minimalists, easily their most recognizable calling card in the visual lexicon of art history. The latest profile of Canadian painter and sculptor Claude Tousignant, on view now at Christopher Cutts Gallery, traces the artist\u2019s lineage within the minimalist practice of autobiographical abandon.<\/p>\n
Claude Tousignant: A Selection<\/em> presents a highly refined selection of his work, ranging from the glory years of the 1960s modernist movement, through to more contemporary times. What immediately becomes evident in this microcosmic exhibition is a strict aesthetic and contextual cohesiveness, illustrated by the highly ordered works on display. Five of the eight paintings are presented as diptychs, but bereft of the traditionally sacred subject matter. Each canvas is similarly monumental, scaling anywhere between seventy to well over one hundred inches in dimension, and are finished in a smooth veneer that frees Tousignant\u2019s work from any distinct authorship into something more pure.<\/p>\n While Tousignant\u2019s formal rigor may recall the likes of Frank Stella and Ellsworth Kelly, the artist\u2019s thematic fixations remain similarly beyond any historical epoch. These contemplative and phenomenological expressions exist beyond sociopolitical benefactors, as they aim to tackle concerns that are distinct to human existence and the confluence of art and objects within that. This exhibition is an affirmation of Tousignant\u2019s dedication to his practice, and how untethered from time and situation his work remains.<\/p>\n<\/a>Claude Tousignant, Double cercle 66 – Cadmium chinacridone,\u00a01975, acrylic on canvas, 66.0\u201d each.<\/p>\n<\/a>Claude Tousignant, Double \u00e9cran chromatique en rouge et bleu, 1988, acrylic on aluminum, 48″ x 48\u201d each<\/p>\n