Dreams of Deer’ exhibition

From 4 December 2024 to 1 June 2025 | An exhibition of paintings by D. Gagnon-Barbeau

Wednesday

Dec.

2024

Sunday

June

2025

The Maison Suger invites you to discover the works of Daniel Gagnon-Barbeau, created during his stays at the Maison Suger. Entitled ‘Rêves de cerfs’, the exhibition invites visitors to explore the symbolism and multiple dreams inspired by this noble animal.

Over the course of his career, Daniel Gagnon-Barbeau has produced more than 5,000 works, including some one hundred portraits of Quebec writers, monumental landscapes and intimate portraits of everyday life. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions in Maisons de la Culture and museums in Quebec and Canada, as well as in France and Germany. Daniel Gagnon-Barbeau has been a member of the Rassemblement des artistes visuels du Québec (RAAV) since 1999 and is an honorary life member of the Musée des beaux-arts de Mont-Saint-Hilaire (Québec).

The opening of the exhibition will take place at the Maison Suger on Wednesday 4 December 2024 from 6 pm.

A journey between reality and imagination

The search for emotion through colour is at the heart of Quebec artist Daniel Gagnon-Barbeau's approach as a painter:

We never really understand colour. It has the power to channel the moving magic of the imagination to transform the fixity of reality, but it remains a mystery. For me, making it burst forth and shine on the white canvas is a fertile quest for freedom and expression, a way of making the invisible appear, of sharing the vital forces of life.

Daniel Gagnon-Barbeau

The deer theme was inspired by Arthur Le Duc's superb herd of deer, a favourite haunt of many lovers of the Jardin du Luxembourg. The works, produced at the Maison Suger, depict this noble animal, a symbol of regeneration, surrounded by flowers, as a gesture towards the beauty of the forests and wild life, life itself, threatened everywhere.