Louis-Bernard St-Jean

Medium: Safflower oil on wood panel
Year: 2021
Dimensions: 57” x 87” (145 x 221 cm)

Original work of art signed by the artist.

About the artwork

The piece [Briser] Le plafond de verre (Breaking the Glass Ceiling) was made in tribute to the first woman to have held the position of general manager of a pulp and paper mill in Quebec.

The composition of this painting resembles that of a large, shattered windowpane. The oversized strokes of white paint beneath the striated black background have taken the form of shards of glass of birch bark, hence its title..

The original idea was to design a striking, large-scale piece while exploring a potential avenue for revisiting my original style from my early days as a painter. I used a small 5 x 7 inch black and white artwork as a model, but recreated it on a much larger scale, enlarging it to 57 × 87 Inches—more than a hundred times its surface area.

It was just as I was finishing the black background that I learned about the wonderful news of my friend's promotion—to which I impulsively decided to modify the composition and adjust the angles of the palette strokes to complete this painting of birch bark glass fragments.

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Another fact, the Belgo Building takes its name from the Belgo Canadian Pulp & Paper Company, originally from Brussels, whose mill was established in Shawinigan in 1904, and which moved its head office into this building after its construction in 1913.

It was during the 1980s that artists first set up their studios there, followed by galleries, beginning with René Blouin and Chantal Boulanger, unknowingly creating what would become one of the most important artistic hubs in the city of Montreal.