Laurent Le Bel-Roux and Florence Viau live and work in the Rosemont–La-Petite-Patrie district of Montréal. Respectively a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin (MFA, 2025) and a master’s student in visual arts at Concordia University, they are bringing their practices together for this first experience with public art. Abstract painter Bel-Roux explores the relationship between body and mind by delving into human perceptions and interpretations of reality. Sculptor and painter Viau examines how images are made and the different technologies and tools that humans have used in different eras. Nature, science, and memory are her preferred themes.
Artwork description
Archipel is composed of 13 undulating elements representing puddles of water of different unique shapes and colours. The colourful assemblage evokes an aquatic landscape in perspective. The work’s title refers to its connections with its host site. Like the aquatic complex, which encompasses various services and uses, each part of the archipelago is considered an “island” with its own identity, and yet part of a larger grouping.
Le Bel-Roux and Viau were inspired by the physical phenomena invoked by water for the formal aspect of Archipel: the feeling of weightlessness of immersed bodies and a sensation of floating emanate from the work. The undulating motion of bodies in pools is suggested by the relief elements of the pieces, which symbolize the movement produced by three drops of water falling to the surface of the water. Finally, the gradation of the colours from warm to cool evokes the reflection of the sky on the water.