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Stephanie
Gevrey was born in Quebec into a family
of artists about the time of the Cultural
Revolution there. Without abandoning
her Franco-Canadian culture, she set
out early on for distant horizons
in search of herself and to put down
new roots. She learned to reconcile
those contradictory cultures that
nurtured her while pursuing those
enriching experiences, which are essential
to the life of an artist.
Friends, collectors, and patrons eagerly
acquired canvases by her upon her
return from trips abroad. At age 33,
she returned to where it all began
by the St. Lawrence where, far from
the madding pace of the city life,
she devoted herself entirely to figurative
painting.
Captivated also by the landscape she
had experienced in her travels, she
expanded her interpretations of nature
with paintings of varying vanishing
points that are ultimately harmonized
under her brush, creating timeless
work - magnificent symphonies of elegance
and maturity.
At first glance, the artist's eye
seems trained upon the seemingly foreign
and unfamiliar, evoking the Orient,
from which emerge figures and landscapes
that then become universal and timeless.
She intuitively interprets the nuances
in nature and accordingly adjusts
her composition as well as her palette
of warm and cool colours to suit both
place and season.
If her inspiration is derived from
reconciling simple elements found
in nature, i.e. remembrances of earth,
water, and sky gathered from her travels,
she also draws from the commonplace
of everyday experiences. There is
no pretense here or hidden mysticism:
for Gevrey, a tree is still a tree;
its authentic meaning remains unchanged.
Her freedom of expression is born
of the spontaneity found in her sketches,
which she executes with a natural
ease and interest. Gevrey inherits
her technique from the masters of
the Russian and French academies who
bequeathed to her the secrets of their
virtuosity, which she then renews
to meet her personal goals: like an
alchemist, she mixes gold with earthen
pigments, acrylics with oils. In so
doing, the artist unveils a particular
seductive view of the world, a promise
of a beauty that quietly remains and
continually sustains.
Collectors and admirers of Gevrey's
work are not mistaken; beauty and
harmony are "all they know and
all they need to know."
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