Los Angeles-based painter Sylvain Latendresse introduces a new body of work, “The Secret Life of Trees,” with a special pop-up exhibition on Thursday, October 5. Of these new paintings, Latendresse says, “My work seeks to explore a nature that lies beyond our senses and all its different interpretations. Hidden to the naked eye is an exchange of energy where particles dance with each other. I want to reveal the fragile balance between what we perceive, what our knowledge gives us access to understand, and that which cannot be seen.
Underpinning Latendresse’s work is the scientific concept of the “invisible exchanges of energy” and the recent discovery that photosynthesis is a quantum process. To efficiently derive energy from the sun, plants use quantum mechanics to harvest sunlight by pursuing multiple pathways simultaneously to convert sunlight into carbohydrates. The use of “quantum superimposition,” which allows for multiple states of being at once, reinforces the idea explored in this work. For Latendresse, capturing what cannot be seen and only intuited is at its very core a meditation on the ineffable — of nature and consciousness itself.
A native of Quebec, Canada, Latendresse has lived in Los Angeles since 2008, and he was instantly mesmerized by its vibrant culture and landscape. He sees Southern and Central California as a “place of constant reinvention and visual stimulus.” Latendresse has been involved with arts and culture throughout his entire professional life – as an artist, a curator, a writer, a critic, and a director of cultural centers and programs. Upon moving to Los Angeles from Canada, his painting practice took a back seat to other pursuits. That changed when the pandemic arrived, giving him the time and space to create new work and bring life – and positivity- into that cloistered time.
Based on places in central California that the artist knows and loves, his landscapes are dreamlike, and sometimes surreal. These enchanted vistas are realized with rich and often Fauvist colors – including a masterful use of yellow and purple hues – and scintillating dappled textures. Latendresse paints only with palette knives, and the rich swaths of acrylic paint put forth a tactile quality suggesting you are physically entering into the spaces he has imagined.
Pictured: “Day Dreams” 28″ x 22″
