DR + P’s

During the summer of 1988, post-Plasticien Yves Gaucher began the Pale Paintings series, “in which he explores a range of colours that generate pure light’” (M. Perreault, 2003), an element that was the subject of constant study in his work. DR + P’s (1989), emerging from this series, unfolds spans of colour in fine, precise nuances going from various shades of grey to a dark plum, slipping between positive and negative spaces. Discussing the structural and formal dynamics of this series, curator Sandra Grant Marchand highlights the rhythmic qualities of the diagonal that is perpetuated in linear space and yet “punctuates the surfaces of its subtly varied slants, creating the slight discords that hold our attention. The dark or light colours are worked in the full scope of their increasingly lateral deployment, and the hinted-at sites of transition from one tone to the next captivate us because they are so elusive.” This fertile cycle came to an end in 1992 with, among other pieces, Reds & Ps (1992, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec), an immense work whose graduated colours interpret and measure the passage of time, as does the present painting, in a smaller scale.