Backsplash Rose, 1982

Private Collection, Montreal

Michael MacDonald, “Award winner Jacques Hurtubise had great influence on abstract painting”, The Canadian Press, January 1, 2015

Jacques Hurtubise figured prominently in ground-breaking Quebec abstract painting exhibitions in the 1960s. The artist straddled painterliness and hard-edge painting throughout his career. By the mid-1970s he returned permanently to gestural works, which consisted of “deep-black pools, rivers and geometric forms”, as described by Sarah Fillmore, chief curator at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. The spontaneously painted black forms in “Backsplash rose” (1982) demonstrates Hurtubise’s “gestural splash that repeats with different forms and backgrounds.” Following his daughter’s sudden and tragic death in 1980, Jacques Hurtubise decided to sell his Montreal house and travel for several years, distracting himself from the negative emotions associated with home. During this period, the artist began an extensive series of symmetrical paintings, composed of canvases folded in half, or two canvases pressed together, in order to create symmetrical abstract images. “Backsplash rose” was completed early in the artist’s new phase, while Hurtubise was exploring the concept of symmetry. The acrylic painting is nearly symmetrical; at first glance it appears to be a mirror- image of a black and pink form, however, upon closer inspection we see that “Backsplash rose” is composed of two similar but distinct shapes painted in the same colour palette.