Yvan Genest

Yvan Genest is a Quebec artist who is very active on the international scene.

His painting career spans several decades, and his works have found a growing circle of collectors in Canada, Mexico, France, the United States, and elsewhere, drawn to the originality of his iconography.

Through free figuration, his imagery provokes the senses and opens a breach in reality, revealing a spiritual and poetic dimension of the contemporary world. His influences come from Mexican popular culture, neo-expressionism, the new free figuration, and outsider art. Genest works his canvases in depth, literally, using mixed media techniques, including acrylic, oil, oil pastel, collage, and digital printing. Throughout his career, he has studied tempera, oil painting, watercolour, and various forms of printmaking.

After several years between Mexico and Quebec, Genest paints mainly in his Montreal studio, exploring a spiritual theme where his Latin and Nordic influences are juxtaposed.

“My art is spiritual. These figures occupy my paintings like actors on a stage. I don’t choose them; they impose themselves, and I am more their costume designer than the playwright. Their presence in the canvas is as mysterious as ours on Earth.”