Les silences de la partition

For Richard Séguin, printmaking is the gesture that accompanies words. Just as one writes songs, printmaking is made of ink, light, and time.

He was introduced to wood engraving by Yvan Lessard, a member of the Xylon International Society of Wood Engravers. He continued his research with New Yorker Peter S. Calvert at the Daumier workshop, as well as with Suzanne Fortin of the Aubergine Workshops in the Eastern Townships. He met Catherine Farish and Jacinthe Tétrault at a collective exhibition presented by Peter Calvert: the LEVEE exhibition (exhibition on the origins of the blues). It was Catherine Farish and Jacinthe Tétrault who introduced him to carborundum engraving, a 20th-century technique developed by Henri Goetz. This process, similar to painting, allows the artist to integrate various materials onto the plate and thus achieve a wide variety of textures in the print.

For this exhibition, he wanted to echo the songs that carry within the images perceived during musical composition. There is no music if there are no silences in the score. The same is true for his rhythm in writing. This is why he connects moments of creation by alternating between the birth of a song and the time he spends in his engraving studio. These moments, which are as many silences, are part of his creative process. In his musical creation, his engravings are, in a way, the silences of the score.

Richard Séguin