France Jodoin

Thematically, I remain completely engaged in the exploration of the marine as a landscape form. I prefer to call the images I create marines because in practice the term often covers art showing as much shipping on rivers, beach scenes and all art showing boats, without any rigid distinction.

Throughout her career, Jodoin has turned her attention to subjects as various as: sea, land, and cityscapes, peopled beach scenes, harbours, boats, and birds, as well as florals and primates, all the while striking a delicate balance between abstraction and figuration. Regardless of subject, it is her deft, gestural handling of paint on linen which transports us to another time or place where we can almost feel and smell the salty sea spray. 
Organic and evocative, timeless and dreamlike, France Jodoin’s paintings are like windows into the subconscious. That of the artist as well as that of the observer, for the muted palette, evocative of sky and water, leaves the spectator free to imagine his own scenario. Which is, in fact, the artist’s intent.
France Jodoin has been exhibiting in galleries and museums in Canada, the United States and Europe for the past fifteen years. She is known and celebrated for her ability to bring a contemporary understanding of materials to a twentieth century exploration of space, often calling to mind Tuner’s churning, emotive skies and Courbet’s impasto landscapes. She lives and works in Cowansville, Quebec, Canada.
 

France Jodoin is primarily an oil painter who also sketches, works with watercolours and creates prints in sugar lift and aquatint. While her subjects include seascapes and landscapes, peopled beach scenes, harbours, boats both moored and on the water, as well as flowers, birds, apes, monkeys and gorillas, her deft, gestural handling of paint renders these with a distinct and contemporary sense of presence. Her declared interest is “the very brevity of life itself,” and to that could be added an abiding concern with Otherness. Other places, other times, other people, even other species, all are watched over with care and intimacy in her works. She achieves this timely presence of the Other by treating paint, this fluid medium, as an elemental force driving her narratives in which mere depiction defers to an atmospheric quality that invites the eye to linger and into which the viewer then becomes enmeshed, implicated. When her works delve into history, it is as a perspective with which this presence of the Other can best be awoken, and to create a mise-en-scène in such a way that the contemporary viewer may construct their own particular signs and stories from the layered marks, washes, wipes and drips on the canvas. In her own words, “The fundamental impulse animating my creative process is to esteem time passing.” France Jodoin has been exhibiting in galleries and museums in Canada, the United States and Europe for the past fifteen years. She lives and works in Cowansville, Quebec, Canada.

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2023 Paul Scott Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ, USA
2023 Thompson Landry Gallery, Toronto, ON, Canada
2023 Lily Pad Gallery, Milwaukee, WI, USA
2022 Saint-Laurent+Hill Gallery, Ottawa, ON, Canada
2022 Pryor Fine Art Gallery, Atlanta, GA, USA
2022 Gallery 421, Kelowna, BC, Canada
2021 Newbury Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA
2021 Thompson Landry Gallery, Toronto, ON, Canada
2021 Lily Pad Gallery, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
2020 Solo Virtual Exhibition. Thompson Landry Gallery (through Art Gate), Toronto, ON,
Canada
2020 Duran Mashaal Gallery, Montreal, QC, Canada
2020 Shain Gallery, Charlotte, NC, USA
2020 Saint-Laurent+Hill Gallery, Ottawa, ON, Canada
2019 Pryor Fine Art Gallery, Atlanta, GA, USA
2019 Thompson Landry Gallery, Toronto, ON, Canada
2018 Duran Mashaal Gallery, Montreal, QC, Canada
2018 Newbury Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA
2018 Saint-Laurent + Hill Gallery, Ottawa, ON, Canada
2017 Thompson Landry Gallery, Toronto, ON, Canada
2017 Christine Klassen Gallery, Calgary, AB, Canada
2017 Centre culturel Yvonne L. Bombardier, Valcourt, QC, Canada
2016 Newbury Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA
2016 Saint-Laurent+Hill Gallery, Ottawa, Canada
2015 Arts Sutton Gallery, Sutton, QC, Canada
2015 Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA, USA
2015 Thompson Landry Gallery, Toronto, ON, Canada
2013 Bruck Museum, Cowansville, QC, Canada
2013 Christine Klassen Gallery, Calgary, AB, Canada
2012 Galerie Théo de Seine, Paris, France
2012 Centre d’art de Kamouraska, Kamouraska, QC, Canada
2011 Saint-Laurent+Hill Gallery, Ottawa, ON, Canada
2010 Beaux-Arts des Amériques, Montreal, QC, Canada
2010 The Weiss Gallery, Calgary, AB, Canada
2009 Saint-Laurent+Hill Gallery, Ottawa, ON, Canada
2009 The Weiss Gallery, Calgary, AB, Canada
2008 Beaux-Arts des Amériques, Montreal, QC, Canada
2008 The Weiss Gallery, Calgary, AB, Canada
2007 Saint-Laurent+Hill Gallery, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Selected Group Exhibitions

2021 Hubert Gallery, New York, NY, USA
2015 Art 250, Waterville, Ireland
2014 Boston International Fine Art Show, Boston, MA, USA
2014 Toronto International Art Fair, Toronto, ON, Canada
2014 ArtHamptons – International Fine Art Fair, NY, USA
2013 Collective Exhibition MAUVE, Cowansville, QC, Canada
2013 ArtHamptons – International Fine Art Fair, NY, USA
2012 Sherbrooke Museum of Fine Arts (with Kevin Sonmor), Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
2012 Newbury Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA
2012 Galerie Théo de Seine, (with Patrick Cady), Paris, France
2011 Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA, USA
2010 Sherbrooke Museum of Fine Arts, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
2010 Beaux-Arts des Amériques, Montreal, QC, Canada
2008 The Weiss Gallery, Calgary, AB, Canada
2008 Beaux-Arts des Amériques, Montreal, QC, Canada
2007 Beaux-Arts des Amériques, Montreal, QC, Canada
2006 Galerie St-Laurent+Hill, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Education
2013 Etching techniques course, Bishop’s University, Knowlton Campus, QC, Canada
2012 Aquatint and etching, Atelier Circulaire, Montreal, QC, Canada
2009–2010 Intaglio, Atelier Circulaire, Montreal, QC, Canada
2000 Portrait Course, Mont Laurier Summer School, QC, Canada
1996–1999 Mixed Media, Saidye Bronfman School of Fine Arts, Montreal, QC, Canada
1996 Perspective and Drawing with the Model, Ottawa School of Arts, Ottawa, ON, Canada
1995 Creative Drawing, Glebe School of Arts, Ottawa, ON, Canada
1993 Intermediate Drawing, Manotick School of Arts, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Residency
2018 Shankhill Castle, Paulstown, co. Kilkenny
2016 Brisons Veor, Cape Cornwall, UK
2015 The Cill Rialaig Project, Ballinskelligs, Ireland
2004 Residency, Pouch Cove, NL, Canada
Bibliography

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Exhibition Essay
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