Chronicles of Desire & Obsession (by Sanita Fejzic)

Mathieu Laca’s Scenes, Portraits of Self and Others

 White Triptych (right canvas), 2012

Mathieu Laca’s art confronts, shocks, demands, provokes. It is elegant and bare in its frankness and effect. And is immediately felt. Stimulated by complex layers, symbols and strokes, the viewer’s sense are triggered and stirred: a deep psychological penetration, an uncomfortable examination, a tender and brutal duel between artist and his desires and obsessions.

I stand still as my conscious and unconscious mind seeps in his body of work. I face my inner censor, moving my eyes from one point of focus to the next. What is art if not the inner movement that reveals our own shadows, desires and breaking points?

Strong in homoerotic and symbolic content, his work echoes the reality of how I experience life through the mind: a jungle, beautiful and wild, scary and scattered, surreal and full of recurring patterns I try to decipher and often fail to grasp—the more basic, banal and truly bestial nature of myself, an animal; myself an intellectual hungry for meaning; myself emotional, reacting with disgust, fear and sometimes, very rarely, with abandon and laughter.

Few artists are able to bring out my competing and complementary selves to the surface. The visual impact of Laca’s work bridges the gap between my angels and demons. My own desires and obsessions.

Symbols can be collective or personal: like the sunflower that flirts effortlessly with beauty and summer in Vincent Van Gogh II, or the deformed creature whose jaw has no face or eyes in Triptyque blanc (right canvas). Traditionally, art carries with it the essence of beauty. But that is only one effect on a spectrum of endless possibilities. Something strange and disturbing lurks below the surface of Laca’s work. A dark force, potent and violent that persists and insists. That leaves no easy interpretation. That draws me closer to myself.

Vincent Van Gogh II, 2012

First desire. Then obsession. What is the link? Desire burns inside the body, mind and soul. In his
series “Self-portraits on raw linen,” the subject’s body is contorted. Masculine flesh exposes the
contours of muscles and bones. In Alter Ego and Leitmotiv the figure sits in the same position: arms wrapped around leg, hiding the sexual organ. In the first painting, Laca is concerned with the effect of psychology on the body; the man leaps forward, stands up or holds back. Each one of these movements and their fluidity is an expression of desire. By nature, desire wants, reaches and holds back. This activity gives birth to tension and more desire.

In both portraits, a dash of red paint punctures the canvas, the colour of passion and symbol of blood. In Leitmotiv an antique saw is attached to the canvas. It’s powerful object with double-entendre. Hovering over the head, it represents strength and the back and forth pull of obsession. What is it that cuts the artist? Obsession with art (its tradition, movement and rupture), raw flesh, emotion, sex and the deep penetration of desire? Obsession with form and the male body? The intensity of it all.

 Leitmotiv, 2008

In both of these portraits, a yellow disk and an eclipsed sun hang on the upper left corner of the
canvas. In Horizon, Laca glued a rusted metal cover; in Avoidance, a sophisticated rose window bursts with abstract design. They echo the cyclical nature of desire and obsession. Obsession is an act of repetition, and desire craves more, always more. The combined intensity of these two forces prove ecstatic, as is the case in Reclining Nude. Notice no circle, no red in this portrait. A moment of surrender, the white of ejaculation. The face is tranquil, eyes are closed and hands are held under the back—the fullness and calm after the release of passion. The French title Gisant stands for a funeral sculpture found in Middle-Age French tombs, providing a window into the ambivalent relationship between desire and death.

Perhaps Laca’s most powerful representations of passion can be found in his series “Scenes.” His
painting White Triptych eludes me. My reaction is guttural; I am left with an uncomfortable feeling. The recurring symbol of the circle is here, this time it’s vivid red. Passion and blood, I feel it even if contextualizing it is difficult. Why the decapitation of woman and creature in the centre and right paintings? My mind wants an easy answer to make the discomfort disappear.

The artist has managed to tell me something about myself, whether by accident or with intent: I still haven’t learnt to sit still with discomfort. A personal truth, a deeply rooted protective instinct. I want to escape it, analyze and control it. Facing it is something else entirely.

Where did I learn to avoid discomfort? The cross above the bird with a human head, eyes Xed out.
Religion has taught me to be good, to walk away from the gruesome, the bloody and whatever else is deemed grotesque. I don’t need religion to know the distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ Society may have loosened up over time, but these notions are unconsciously preserved.

In Printemps québécois, Laca confronts current social issues, the student riots in Quebec. The red
square is a symbol with new meaning: access to affordable education. The policeman wears a mask, he has no identity, he is the hand of societal control, hitting and kicking. Is collective freedom necessarily gained through force? So long as the individual wears the mask of authority, he has the power to kick and hurt without truly looking at himself in the mirror.

And if we look in the mirror, what do we see?

In Rebirth, a baby’s head escapes from a man’s neck. It comes out of a fire of yellow and orange.
Blood drips. When we face the mirror and look at what is—reflection of desires, obsessions, beautiful and grotesque, unique and collective—are we born anew or are we simply raising our level of consciousness? Do we go back to a screaming infant, or do we see the many layers of our self?

A deeper understanding of these layers in his large painting, Mort ou vif (Dead or alive). Set in a
natural landscape, with a rocky mountain and green grass: battles between two horses and two men. Below the action, a newborn. This is an epic scene. Horses are prays, they are domesticated animals. Rarely do we see horses fight to blood, and yet this is exactly the frame of mind Laca puts us in. A layer below, two men, naked are also fighting. Neither penises are erect; there is no suggestion that the struggle is homoerotic and yet, the tone is clear. The opponents’ hands are on one another’s hip and shoulder. They are not violent, just firm.

Mort ou vif, 2012

The translucence effect merges the horses to the men. The baby’s body alone is painted in solid
colours. The same colours as in Rebirth. A dark green cord grounds the baby to earth, perhaps the
umbilical cord? Laca has said that he doesn’t see his work as violent, preferring instead the word
passion. One can deduce that, as in the relationship between desire and obsession, violence and
passion complement each other.

Passion is the intense heat of life. But the flame of violence destroys life. We see it in the
painting: it begins with the innocent cry of a baby; then the passionate wrestle between men; it
ends with a brutal bite to the jaw. If we look at Mort ou vif from point of view that life begins
innocently and grows passionately, then it seems only natural to conclude that violence ends in
death. The relationship between passion and violence is not cyclical, it is linear. Where violence
begins, passion ends.

A visceral reaction—almost instant, barely noticed—to Self-portrait on Green Ground. Thin and
thick brush strokes compose the colour of bare flesh. An intense concentration of texture and
deep strokes puncture at the mouth: black, stretched, screaming. Whose hands pull at the
artist, tearing him open?

The background is muted and ghostly, with the typical paint drippings and point of view found in
Laca’s portraiture. The atmosphere is serene in its choice of colours, with vivid and soft pastels
and yet, it’s full of intensity. Head slightly tilted, mouth torn open by the pull of hands: I realize I
am facing an orgasm. The fingers hold a gentle grip, they do not tear the skin. The mouth
opens wide and with surrender. I almost blush when I see the ecstasy in his face; I have
intruded intimacy. It makes me wonder if desire is bit into like an apple or if instead, pleasure
opens the mouth wide, pulling out a breath of surrender from deep within. The eyes will not tell,
they are closed.

Self-portrait on Green Ground is similar in style to Laca’s “Old Masters” series. In 2011, Laca
began his first series of portraits of iconic artists, ranging from Dali to Riopelle.

Laca researched the original pigments used by the cannons in their own work as a means to
get closer to the language of painting, to its source and history. He researched the original
colours used by the masters, including minerals like vermilion, lapis lazuli, orpiment, malachite,
madder lake, lead white pigment and Nicosia green earth. It’s this quality that gives each
portrait their authentic essence.

The result is formal and seeped in classical tradition, as is apparent by the style. What gives
the portraits their distinctive flair is the vivid strokes and drippings that connect them to their
contemporary context. In Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Laca reinterpreted the artist’s Selfportrait at age 24 (1804), staying loyal to the tone and intensity of the dark colours the French neoclassical painter is notorious for. The departure from the classical interpretation of the portraits is clear in the red and dark spatula effect on the right hand corner.

My eyes shift from Ingres’s large green eyes to the red paint and golden flower of the frame.
The effect is in the contrast between old and new. Left, right, left, right from tradition to
something completely unexpected.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 2012

In addition to the drippings and splashes of bright colour, the frame itself builds on the theme of old and new. Each frame is carefully composed, as in Gustav Klimt’s masterpieces whose golden
frames cannot be separated from the paintings they hug. Laca’s husband, Jean Comeau carves
wood and gilds his flowers and other motifs with gold leaves. Always conscious of structural
impact, Comeau ensures that his additions never touch the canvas or place any unnecessary
pressure on the frame. When he fixes his sculptures on the modern shadow-box frames, he
finalizes the work. Each piece adds meaning as, for example, in the portrait of Bosch, for which he
sculpted a small dragon in reference to the many creatures painted by the artist.

The connection between artist and artisan, husband and husband is profound. In his portrait Jean (77 cm x 61 cm), Laca’s brush strokes are balanced and beautiful. The focus is the eyes. When the spin of desire, obsession, passion, nakedness and rawness come to a halt, there is the stillness of love. Perhaps that’s what those blue eyes inspire in me. The vastness and endlessness of love.

Jean, 2012

Excerpt form the exhibition catalog Mort ou vif » 

Sanita Fejzic is a fiction writer based in Ottawa. She has published her poetry and short stories in various literary magazines including Guerilla, Byword and The Newer York. In the past year, she was the author of The Beaver Tales blog for Xtra newspaper as well as the Ottawa correspondent for 2B, Être and Entre Elles magazines. Prior to her independent writing career, Fejzic was also the Editor-in-chief of Muse magazine for the Canadian Museums Association as well as the English editor at the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Canadian War Museum.