For the second time in as many years, I had the privilege to meet Martin Beaupré last night at the Midnight Sun gallery, in Morges, where he was doing another live painting exhibition. Whereas last year he did the two-handed upside-down painting demonstration, this year he presented how he started his works, with 3 blank canvases.
More things I learned:
- He never runs out of ideas because he never has any ideas on what his paintings will be like to begin with.
- He never paints while he has any negative emotion. He might do some side borders, or go running.
- Once he has a formline, he’ll turn the canvas until he sees something that works. Maybe it’ll be a geisha, maybe it’ll be a landscape.
- He never throws out a canvas. If something doesn’t work, he’ll paint it black and do a night scene.
- He’ll start with acrylic and paste, then switch to oils.
- He works on so many canvases at once because he finds it difficult to know when to stop. The interrupt required by letting layers dry and moving on to another painting helps him decide when it’s “done”.