Caleb Nickerson
PORTAGE DU FORT
June 30, 2017
Local art-lovers flocked to the Stone School Gallery in Portage du Fort on Friday night for a vernissage highlighting two very different artists.
In the first floor gallery, Rémi Girard of Chelsea displayed his show, “Nature Extended,” which incorporates the medium he calls “Phytrail.” Girard takes plants, many of which he cultivates himself and presses them between glass panes, or glues them to the surface with resin, sometimes along with colourful geodes.

“Those are real plants in the glass,” he explained. “I try to protect them so they will last. The sun is very tough on the plants.”
He said that he started perfecting the craft 20 years ago and said he got the idea from walking in the forest in the fall.
“When you are under the trees, you have a roof of colour,” he said. “You can have that luminosity that’s different.”
Upstairs, Nicolas Grégoire displayed his collection of abstract works, entitled “Erosion.”
“I work on plywood panels. I use many, many layers of acrylic. To make it look distressed I sand the surface,” he said. “My theme is erosion, I like to make it look very rough, very distressed. That’s what I try to represent, something that’s aged.”
He used to paint realistic scenes in oil because he enjoyed the texture of the medium. In 2003 he switched to textured abstract paintings in acrylic, a change that was sparked when his mother was working with people suffering vision problems.
“My mother was working with people that were getting blind and I thought ‘Why don’t we do something that people can touch,’” he said, adding that his paintings are coated in a tough resin. “It’s made to be touched, it’s really durable.”
This was both artists’ first time showing at the Stone School Gallery. Their work will be on display until July 30.