Robert Marchessault | Windswept

Robert Marchessault | Windswept
Solo Exhibition | Upper Level Gallery
May 10-24, 2025
3045 Granville Street, Vancouver
Opening Reception: Saturday May 10, 2-4pm


In his new solo exhibition Windswept, acclaimed Canadian artist Robert Marchessault deepens his long-standing exploration of tree imagery, presenting a powerful new series that evokes both universal emotion and intimate reflection. These dynamic, wind-bent trees, most often pictured on colour field backgrounds with minimal or no additional landscape features, become expressive vessels through shape, texture and colour. Marchessault’s work invites viewers to contemplate the natural world not only as landscape, but as a profound emotional language. Drawing on the symbolic resonance trees hold across cultures and causes, Windswept captures a stirring sense of motion, resilience, and connection.


Artist statement:

Since the early 2000s tree images have been prominent in my work.  I have found that their forms embody much of what I want to express on my canvases.  The development of my imagery has been a long process.  In this exhibition viewers will see more steps in my investigation.  As always colour, light and space are of great interest to me. My compositions try to express aspects of our human conditions.  I paint a lot of trees; they present a big range of emotions. It is from the likes of Morandi and other modern painters who use a repeating motif that I understand it is possible to find endless riches by exploring within a constrained set. 

Trees are a major theme throughout visual art.  Artists can express a large range of sentiments using trees as a subject.  Organizations devoted to the environment frequently use tree images to grab our attention and harness our feelings.  Most people understand the sentiments tree shapes can imply. Like the human form, trees are able to express a profound range of emotions.  This is why I use their shapes, colours and textures to suggest to a viewer things that are universal but also might be intensely personal.  For me making and experiencing art begins non-verbally.  The way the energy flows up and through a tree is like music.  Growing conditions and climate shape a tree’s form. I see parallels with our own life journeys. As such, trees provide me with an endless variation that sustains my passions as a painter.

The title of this exhibition, Windswept, is taken from one of the paintings.  It’s a theme I return to because the dynamics of wind and tree shapes provides exciting compositions.  I love to feel the energies at play when making these.  Movement, resilience, resistance, joy…  
-Robert Marchessault, 2025


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