Vagabond, 1976

Galerie Valentin, Montreal Private Collection, Montreal

Simon Blais (ed.), Marcelle Ferron: Monograph, Montreal, 2008, pages 8, 13 and 20

An important member of the Automatiste movement, Ferron was deeply inspired by Paul-Émile Borduas and the abstract art revolution taking place in Montreal. Breaking free of landscape traditions, Ferron exhibited a dedication to gestural abstraction in her works. Favouring the palette knife, diverging sweeps and scrapes of thick oil paint are found in her works, with a particular free energy in her works after 1973 when she returned to painting. Of these works upon her return to painting after a foray into working with stained-glass, curator Réal Lussier states that “her handling had lost nothing of its expressiveness or energy, nor her palette any of its brilliance: both reflected an unchanged sensibility. Picking up where she had left off, she executed a number of large paintings that generally combined broad contrasting fields of almost monochrome colour with bursts of lively spatula strokes radiating in all directions, almost like the results of an explosion.” “Vagabond” exemplifies Ferron’s penchant for vigorous palette knife work with the concentrated burst of strokes near the centre of the canvas in fiery oranges with highlights of white. The gestural sprays of black pigment give nod to the trend of action painting in abstract art and implicate the artist as an active player in the creation of the work. The organic and unique sweeping movement of her body is translated directly onto the canvas in these black gestural lines. These gestural elements are further accentuated in contrast with the luxurious depth of the Bordeaux-coloured background plane. These movements and depth created are further emphasized by the verticality of the painting and the unique scale and shape of the artwork.