NEW YORK, NY.- Waterhouse & Dodd New York welcomes visitors back to the gallery with Resilience in Color. This show highlights the most recent work from talented Canadian artist, Martin Brouillette. It is an homage to drawing as a coping mechanism, color as solace.

Martin Brouillette’s new body of work was completed between the fall of 2021 and early 2022. For Martin, these paintings serve as a journal of the last period of the pandemic. He was born in 1971 in Montreal where he began his artistic career. His artistic journey then flourished in London between 2007 and 2019, and has continued after moving to New York three years ago. Waterhouse & Dodd is pleased to be his worldwide representative.

The works in this exhibition are oil on canvas but the inspiration is heavily reliant on drawing which has become Brouillette’s form of resilience. He mainly draws on an iPad and then recreates and interprets the drawings on canvas, not by digital means but purely by painting. Brouillette finds escapism, excitement, and solace in drawing.

His oeuvre is focused not only on the forms but the textures he leaves behind in their creation. His experiments with color explore composition and relationships between space and storytelling. The charm of Brouillette's painting lies not only within the images themselves but also from the stories his titles evoke. His romantic, optimistic and idealistic personality comes to the surface. A hopeful naiveté resonates throughout his work, giving a biopic of the artist himself.

Martin sees his works as extensions of himself and a revelatory story on his perceptions; a story of perseverance, resilience and bravery.

Martin Brouillette is a French-Canadian painter living in New York. His work has been shown In Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, New York, and London. His approach to painting refers to Formalism and it involves the exploration of digital media.

Artist's Statement:

"I am inspired by the digital world's aesthetic - how computer applications have allowed me to transform and manipulate my initial drawings. My latest paintings are the expression of my extravagant and excessive self, which are profoundly hiding behind my discreet and restrained façade. They are revealing my camp alter-ego who is longing to manifest itself. I feast on designing complex arrangements of formal elements. I am seeking a harmonious visual experience within disorder. I like to orchestrate interactions between contraries while investigating balance and unity. I find pleasure in excess and vibrant chaos.

I initially address my work from a formalist approach by directing my concerns toward composition, pattern, structure, space, and the interactions of colors. The succession of layers in my paintings is meticulously planned; each is meant to complement, enhance, or discredit each other deliberately. I use digital tools to solve compositional dilemmas while they culminate in tactile human intervention. I entertain a fetishist relationship with oil paint and its materiality. Abusing the surface by charging up blobs of paint and luscious brushstrokes onto the canvas creates a sense of joy which I find stimulating.

I am motivated by bright colors, bold shapes, and playful compositions. I spend a lot of time drawing and sketching on my tablet. I make choices based on what feels exciting to me. As a result, I am free to create a new leap of faith with each mark, embrace my intuition and enjoy the work with wonder."