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{"id":3253,"date":"2021-08-30T17:55:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-30T22:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/painting-in-a-transitory-realm-vincent-larouche-and-the-effects-of-digital-culture\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T14:10:36","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T19:10:36","slug":"painting-in-a-transitory-realm-vincent-larouche-and-the-effects-of-digital-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/painting-in-a-transitory-realm-vincent-larouche-and-the-effects-of-digital-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Painting in a Transitory Realm: Vincent Larouche and the Effects of Digital Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Through these actions, virtual content manifests in the physical world and a painting becomes an external screen,2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 2 <\/a> - Achim Hochd\u00f6rfer, \u201cHow the World Came In,\u201d in Painting 2.0: Expression in the Information Age: Gesture and Spectacle, Eccentric Figuration, Social Networks<\/em>, ed. Manuela Ammer (Munich: Museum Brandhorst, 2015), 24. 24.<\/span>holding a record of the artist\u2019s search history through appropriated images, gestures, and shapes. Within this notion, digital and analogue languages become intertwined.3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 3 <\/a> - Ibid.<\/span> In the work of Montr\u00e9al-based artist Vincent Larouche, painting is understood through translation, bringing awareness to how a hegemonic notion of knowledge has shifted by virtue of how we consume images online. Through his work, Larouche explores the Internet\u2019s capacity to alter our perception of reality, empathy, and safety by carrying the overwhelming nature of the virtual realm into the material world. Within this space of all-encompassing connectivity, Larouche reminds us that in such a network, no one can be sure who is in control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the cycle of translation from the screen to the physical world, traces of the virtual materialize in Larouche\u2019s paintings through dynamic brushwork, bright flashes of colour, and animated compositions. Much like encountering pop-up windows online, we find ourselves actively bombarded by imagery. Larouche alludes to this feeling through his layering of nostalgia, fandom, and pop culture. . His paintings solicit the viewer\u2019s attention, referring to characters in video games, cartoons, and Hollywood films, and capitalize on a desire for familiarity and the comfort of nostalgia. He plays with this idea by altering and pairing images, creating new hybrid narratives, and he affords himself the authority to copy and paste diverse character references, intertwining their values and cultural histories as he wishes. Ontological Fan Fiction<\/em> (2019) is a split- screen portrait of Keanu Reeves as Neo from The<\/em> Matrix<\/em> (1999) and Sandra Bullock. The suspense of action films is captured in their gazes. Eyes are used strategically in Larouche\u2019s paintings to generate an ongoing shift in power between who is watching and who is watched.4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 4 <\/a> - Caroline Andrieux, \u201cThe Watchers Being Watched,\u201d Ocelle, exhibition text, Montr\u00e9al, Darling Foundry<\/em>, 2020.<\/span> The letters \u201cABC\u201d are painted across the subjects\u2019 faces in an encrypted code that is a humorous stand-in for the dramatic language used on film posters. Sharing a camouflage colour pallet and painterly brushstrokes, the connection of Reeves and Bullock prompts viewers to second-guess their own knowledge of the film\u2019s casting…<\/em> In reality, Bullock did not star in The Matrix at all, and the painting\u2019s title reveals its fabrication. Larouche plays with the near casting of Bullock in the film\u2019s lead role and, by doing so, presents an alternative reality to the viewer and thus to the network. This is similar to the experience of encountering a photoshopped photograph online in which the editor holds the power to alter, rearrange, collage, and delete elements of an image as they see fit \u2014 an authority not unlike that which was historically held by the painter while composing a work. Within these encounters, the viewer questions the validity of the image and its source. At a time where anyone\u2019s modification of images can alter our belief in truth, Larouche emphasizes the pervasive doubt and distrust in the circulation of images online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Vincent Larouche<\/strong>
Ontological Fan Fiction,<\/em> 122 \u00d7 183 cm, 2019.
Photo : Simon Belleau, permission de | courtesy of the artist & Fonderie Darling, Montreal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Larouche uses characters strategically, exploiting our emotions and attention to re-create the false sense of security that we feel while browsing the Internet. This is magnified through the calculated grouping of paintings, objects, and spaces used throughout his solo exhibitions to trigger an awareness of being watched. In this careful staging of paintings among gallery debris, Larouche implicates the historical context of a space to create an immersive experience. Throughout his exhibitions, elements that are often overlooked become activated, acting as clues to a larger network. One example is Sandcastle Staircase<\/em>, a solo exhibition at Ryan LLC in 2018 in which Larouche\u2019s paintings were presented in a vacant office space in Montr\u00e9al. The Internet\u2019s infrastructure and physical effects were apparent in the exposed telephone wires, empty break room, and sun-bleached bulletin board. These alluded to a time past, before the integration of wireless technology allowed for work to be performed anywhere and labour demanded a corporeal presence to be fulfilled at the office. Sandcastle Staircase<\/em> reminded its audience that the Internet exists just outside of physical sight; a transitory, liminal space where cables are hidden and information is shared immediately and without limits.5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 5 <\/a> - Trevor Paglen, \u201cTrevor Paglen in Conversation with Lauren Cornell,\u201d in Mass Effect: Art and the Internet in the Twenty-First Century<\/em>, ed. Lauren Cornell and Ed Halter (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2015), 258. 258.<\/span> Wireless communication and the development of online data systems such as the cloud are examples of this invisible system.6<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 6 <\/a> - Ibid.<\/span> Larouche guides viewers using discreet interventions, such as the arrangement of ethernet cables seeping out of the walls alongside the paintings. The intentional arrangement of familiar imagery and objects leaves the impression of walking onto a set where information is encrypted and inaccessible. As viewers navigate this controlled environment, they are vulnerable, suddenly aware that they are participants in a greater system that they cannot quite piece together. This feeling of comfortable ineptitude is similar to that of surfing the Web. The paranoia of our smartphone listening to us or our credit card information being stolen while we check out appears both absurd and extremely probable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rise of surveillance capitalism\u2014the collection and sale of user data \u2014 has compelled many to question the intent of seemingly innocent, even generous offers by companies to sign up and access their services.7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 7 <\/a> - Shoshana Zuboff, \u201cHome or Exile in the Digital Future,\u201d in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power<\/em> (New York: Public Affairs, 2019), 8.<\/span> In this exhibition, Larouche\u2019s paintings and installation manifest this energy outside the screen. Viewers, accustomed to taking a passive role while looking at art, are left with the impression that they are no longer safe within the privacy of their own viewing experience. Just like the feeling one has while navigating the Internet, Sandcastle Staircase leaves viewers reflecting on surveillance and paranoia, questioning their sense of security and privacy when participating in a controlled environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In Sky Painting<\/em> (2019), viewers are surveyed by a different set of eyes, this time in the form of a sleek MQ-9A Reaper drone. Used by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the MQ-9A Reaper has quickly become one of the drones most widely used by international government agencies.8<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 8 <\/a> - \u201cMQ-9A Reaper (Predator B),\u201d General Atomics Aeronautical<\/em> Systems Inc., 2021, accessible online.<\/span> Championed for its endurance alongside its surveillance and striking abilities, the drone has the capacity to carry a 3,850-pound payload. The graphic representation of this machine in Sky Painting<\/em>, with its flat brushwork, suggests a depiction that is closer to a 3D rendering than a painting of the object. The monochromatic grey sky and the hard shadows of the drone are reminiscent of early video game aesthetics. The relationship between war and simulation is time-honoured, as the U.S. Army was one of the largest investors in the early developments of the video game industry.9<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 9 <\/a> - Corey Mead, War Play: Video Games and the Future of Armed Conflict<\/em> (Boston: Eamon Dolan\/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013), 16.<\/span> With the growth of our dependency on and desire to engage with technology, simulation becomes an affordable, safe, and compact way to train technical skills while shielding us from otherwise dangerous and harmful activity. Simulation offers a disconnection from reality, an escape that allows us to detach actions from the reality of their consequences. In Sky Painting,<\/em> nostalgia and game aesthetics are strategically used to consider how the virtual quality of imagery can camouflage the reality it perpetuates. This becomes all the more dangerous in the immersive experience presented by being online. The inability to experience the physical consequences of our actions online threatens our capacity to experience empathy and perform ethical choices. Highlighting our inability to distinguish simulation from reality,<\/em> this work explores how the visual language of screen culture can be weaponized by nation-states to cause harm, intimidate, and control.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Vincent Larouche<\/strong>
Sky Painting, <\/em>77 \u00d7 102 cm, 2019.
Photo : Simon Belleau, permission de | courtesy of the artist & Fonderie Darling, Montr\u00e9al <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Vincent Larouche<\/strong>
Charlotte Corday Before Stabbing Marat,<\/em> 132 \u00d7 203 cm, 2019.
Photo : Simon Belleau, permission de | courtesy of the artist & Fonderie Darling, Montr\u00e9al<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Vincent Larouche<\/strong>
Untitled, <\/em>122 \u00d7 152 cm, 2020.
Photo : permission de | courtesy of the artist & Interstate Projects, Brooklyn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Larouche belongs to a generation of painters who were raised consuming images and artworks online, accessing any information they want, whenever they want it. As he creates his work, he reflects on the manner in which the Internet has subsumed our everyday lives, altering our perception and changing the way we navigate the physical world.10<\/sup><\/a><\/span> 10 <\/a> - Phone conversation with Vincent Larouche, November 3, 2020.<\/span> Drawing on images and characters from the virtual realm, he questions their motives, manipulating these common images to reflect new and sinister narratives. Images become enmeshed with each other as they are translated from screen to canvas, conjoining to challenge the viewer\u2019s ability to distinguish fact from fiction. Capturing the addictive and alarming nature of viewing images online, Larouche\u2019s paintings trigger our desire to find the comforts of nostalgia and community in the overwhelming and anxiety-inducing connectivity of the Internet. Through these works, Larouche uses painting to reflect on the impact of the Internet on our understanding of reality, sense of security, and capacity for empathy. Re-creating the sense of paranoia and surveillance experienced while browsing the Internet, he calls our attention to the dangers of passively surfing the Web. Stepping away from his paintings, viewers are left with a reminder: the Internet has changed painting; the Internet has changed everything.<\/p>\n

Cindy Hill, Vincent Larouche<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Internet has changed painting. Now, more than ever, painters and their work are implicated in a non-hierarchical network, amidst other artists, historical content, images, information, meatloaf recipes, anime porn, Reddit threads about nineties sci-fi, pumpkin spice memes, and WebMD. This content is translated from the screen to the canvas, and back again, through the artist\u2019s ability to access, modify, reproduce, and post online as a painterly act. This cyclical process produces new meaning, expanding painting\u2019s reach into what David Joselit calls the externalization of the medium. Joselit describes this as \u201can expansion of its definition from mark making on the canvas to a kind of scoring in physical [NOTE count=1]space.”[\/NOTE][REF count=1]David Joselit, \u201cMarking, Scoring, Storing, and Speculating (on Time),\u201d in Painting beyond Itself: The Medium in the Post-medium Condition, ed. Isabelle Graw and Ewa Lajer- Burcharth (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2016), 17 17. .[\/REF]. Within these terms, referencing digital content as a painterly act has the ability to score physical space, directing the viewer\u2019s attention to it as a material form on the canvas.<\/br>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2226,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,882],"tags":[360,361],"numeros":[338],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[904],"artistes":[1826],"thematiques":[],"type_post":[319],"class_list":{"0":"post-3253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-post","9":"tag-editorial-en","10":"tag-exhibitions","11":"numeros-102-reseeing-painting","12":"auteurs-cindy-hill-en","13":"artistes-vincent-larouche-en","14":"type_post-principal"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3253"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271603,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3253\/revisions\/271603"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3253"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=3253"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=3253"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=3253"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=3253"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=3253"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=3253"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=3253"},{"taxonomy":"type_post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_post?post=3253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}