Opening: Saturday, February 8, 2 p.m - 4 p.m.

Louise Robert has regularly shown her recent work at Galerie Simon Blais for quite a number of years. Now, for the first time, the gallery is holding an exhibition that explores the development of this accomplished and celebrated artist’s work over time by displaying eight pieces executed between 1979 and 2019. This look at four decades of painting is an unprecedented opportunity for those who admire her art to once again appreciate her singular iconography.

From the “automatic writing” paintings of the late 1970s, when she was finally confident in asserting her strength as a self-taught painter, to the most recent, large and dense, compositions, the material richness of the painted surface has been the artist’s trademark. Louise Robert has developed a technique in which writing is omnipresent. Whether featuring calligraphic lettering or lyrical verses painted using stencils, in every work the artist presents us with an all-over composition to which she adds words and brief phrases that serve as poems, as well as become the subtitles of canvases. This exhibition is a brief retrospective enlightening the approach of this major artist through time.

Louise Robert’s works are included in many private and public collections, including those of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and the Musée d'art de Joliette.