What looks to be an array of brightly-coloured puzzles hanging on the walls of the Leighton Art Centre’s Tower Gallery is in fact a Calgary artist’s newest creation.
French-Canadian painter Jean Guitard developed his unique style by capturing bright colours in geometric shapes – a technique he calls puzzle paintings.
Guitard was inspired to create this unique art form by centuries’ old graffiti decorating old buildings he saw on vacation in Mexico five years ago.
“I was really fascinated by that,” he said. “I had never seen anything like it.”
This contemporary abstract art form depicts a range of influences from early pre-Hispanic Mayan culture to post-modern geometric forms.
The Montreal-raised self-taught artist has experimented with various styles of art over the years, with his first public showing at the age of 17.
“When I was in Montreal I was painting in totally different styles,” he said. “I’ve been through a lot of phases in my life.”
Guitard began his career as a cartoonist and then moved on to various other forms of abstract and impressionist art.
When he moved to Calgary 25 years ago, he began knocking on his neighbours’ doors asking to paint their houses. Soon after, he headed to golf courses.
“I realized a lot of people love golfing in Calgary,” he said. “I started doing signature holes for golf courses. I started to do it in a funky way with bright colours, like a Picasso phase.”
Guitard worked on impressionism art before developing his unique puzzle style.
“When I started doing these paintings, I thought ‘I’m getting off the bus here and not going further to try something different,’” he said. “I thought, ‘this is what I really enjoy doing every day.’”
Most of the puzzle paintings Guitard creates have a personal story attached to them.
If his viewers look hard enough, they will see more than just colours and shapes.
“It’s not quite like Where’s Waldo, but there is always something in there,” he said. “I did a painting called Country Living for the people who live in the area of a cowboy on a horse with the mountains in the background. You can look at it for about two or three minutes and say, ‘It’s a beautiful variation of the country,’ but you still don’t get it until you get pointed out the animals in the painting.”
The pieces Guitard creates range in size from one square foot to seven feet tall.
In his Calgary studio, he’s always working on more than one painting.
“It’s like playing the piano - I’m working on three or four pieces at the same time,” he said. “It’s like I start on something and I will do one quarter of it. I like to move on to something else or sometimes you have excess paint you don’t want to lose. If you do other things at the same time and keep doing a corner at a time it’s like a puzzle.”
Stephanie Doll, curator at the Leighton Art Centre, said the staff were impressed with Guitard’s contemporary abstract style in puzzle paintings.
“They are really beautiful,” she said. “The colours and the themes for each piece draws on his own memories and experiences. Geometric forms puzzle together to make these abstract pieces that are really colourful. Each of the pieces is totally different from one another.”
Private collections of Guitard’s puzzle paintings are located in Germany, Mexico, Canada and the United States.
His work has been displayed in galleries in Mexico, Napa Valley and Toronto.
Guitard’s exhibit will be available for viewing at the Leighton At Centre until April 30.
The Leighton Art Centre is open Tuesday to Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
To learn more about Jean Guitard go to jeanguitard.com
