Painter Gilles Arsenault is going up on the walls of Andrew Horne’s Flying Pony Café. The official opening is on Saturday (drop in 4:00 – 7:00 p.m.) but I was lucky enough to stop in for coffee just as Andrew was hanging the first canvases. Gilles was busy signing the backs, so I got to meet him. too.
The show is well named. Gilles Arsenault uses colour in completely surprising combinations that really work. I thought the pieces looked like jewels hanging against the dark brick of the Flying Pony exhibition wall. Compositions wrap right around the stretchers, so no need for frames.
The chap assisting with title tags asked about one of the paintings, “What’s this one called?” “Excellent, if I say so myself,” Arsenault replied. “Could you make that title a little shorter?” asked the tag man. “Just use the first letter of each word,” I suggested.
Now you know what the work called EIISSM is about.
You can call the next one “Modesty is Bullshit”, laughed Andrew Horne.