About the Exhibition 

In Light or In Darkness – exhibition essay by Lizzie Carr

Printmaking is an ever evolving artistic medium with techniques differentiating from one geographic region to the next. Print collaborates with the traditional and the modern, using basic techniques with experimental and contemporary trends. Its technical diversity has broadened the concept and definition of print in the 21st century, and artists working within this medium continue to push the boundaries and foster new possibilities for the art of printmaking.

Guy Langevin is a remarkable artist who has made a distinct impression on printmaking in Canada. Through his skills in drawing, lithography, and mezzotint, Langevin has become one of the most acclaimed Canadian print artists He has participated in more than 300 group exhibitions including 80 international biennials and juried exhibitions, and has had more than 60 solo exhibitions in Canada, U.S.A, France, Belgium, Portugal, China and Germany.

Langevins’ solo exhibition, Falling Angels, at the Alberta Printmakers’ Society’s Artist Proof Gallery, is a continuation of a former series. The exhibition consists of figurative mez­ zotint prints and digital prints. Using the human form as his subject, Langevin’s mezzotints present a struggle between light and shadow, between abstraction and realism. Moving on from his earlier works which display a dark background with light projecting from the human figure, this series pres­ ents a clear background causing the figure to become less identifiable, and thus wraps the human figure in it’s own darkness.

‘Based on the duality between fugitiveness of light and moment*’, Langevins’ work navigates between exactitude and blurry images to exaggerate this duality. The human figures portrayed, twist and become disfigured, modified by his ephemeral light, which in turn rests itself upon a metaphor of man’s consciousness of his own death. The belief of the eternity of one’s spirit or soul, or the attempt to make an existence appear longer in the memories of others, becomes representative in the ambiguous movement of the human figures.

Although in unascertainable positions, the figures are falling. Yet no recognizable place, no ground, no safety net, nothing that identifies reality besides the body placed on the paper, is apparent. It is here, in this realization, that the viewer can decide and interpret where the figure is falling; in light, or in darkness. There is a subtle yet constant aura of death, which is only announced through the perceptible play of light and time in these prints. The human bodies moving throughout the space of the work become a material, not a model. The body, ‘is the image, creates the image; it is not only a part of it.*’ By forming the human body without concrete identification, the viewer is allowed to create their own pronouncement of the represented figure, and develop his/ her own relation to the work.

About the Artist

Guy Langevin is an award-winning print artist based in Trois­ Rivieres, Quebec. Originally from Chicoutimi, Langevin moved. to Trois Rivieras to study art at the University of Quebec in the 1970s. He is an extremely accomplished artist who has been presented with many awards which include the Trois-Rivieres sans Frontieres Award in 2010, the Guanlan International Print Prize, Guanlan, China in 2009, and the Grand Prize of Bharat Bhavan Art Print Biennial, Bhopal, India in 2006. His work resides in multiple collections including the Musee du Quebec, the lnstuto per la culture e I’ arte, Catania, Italia, the City of Clamecy, France, and Teoartis Gallery, Evora, Portugal.