Oils and pencil on canvas, 2021
In Fish, Pépin combines coloured pencils and oil paints to describe a struggling fish out of water in a simple piece reminiscent of Italian Futurism with a Post-Impressionist touch. The thick dabs of paint hold a physical quality that expresses matter, whereas the river, thinly depicted with coloured pencils, is matte, dry, and empty.
Alexandre Pépin is a French-Canadian visual artist born in Tiohtiá:ke/Montréal (1992), currently living and working in Austin, Texas. He holds an MFA in studio arts from the University of Texas at Austin (2022) and a BFA in studio arts from Concordia University in Montréal (2016). Pépin draws on the legacy of Byzantine and early Renaissance frescoes, Post-Impressionism, Tonalism, the Viennese Secession, and Pattern and Decoration to portray moments of Queer intimacy and spiritual contemplation. The recipient of grants from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (2017) and the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation (2019), Pépin has participated in residencies at the Vermont Studio Center (2017) and the Ox-Bow School of Art (Summer Fellowship, 2021), and his work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Canada and the US. His work was recently reviewed in Esse arts + opinions (2021), New American Painting (2022), Glasstire (2022), and Sightlines Magazine (2022).