Nicole Taillon Born on April 12, 1955, in Sainte-Monique, a village in the Lac Saint-Jean region of Quebec, Nicole Taillon grew up in a working-class environment and inherits her father’s manual skill and taste for precision. Attracted by everything life has to offer, she studied psychology and mathematics, theatre and science, with the same appetite which carried her from drawing towards graphism and contemporary design. So for four or five years, Nicole Taillon produced gouache painting marked by high degree of precision, similar to Hyperrealism, and devoted primarily to personal memories. 1980 marked the beginning of an interlude using silk-screen printing portraying, for the most part, rural landscapes dominated by a preoccupation with light and graphism. 1982 saw a return to painting, this time in acrylics, and total submersion in a torment of inspiration, in witch are mongled nostalgia and melancholy, anguish and a haunting fear of dissolution and loneliness. Then driven by the obsession to charge each new painting with a social message capable of composting for its apparent futility, Taillon ardently turned to sculpture, searching, in the complexity of molding and founding techniques, for a distraction from her haunting fears, and at the same time for the opportunity to create the emblematic figures of the ” People” who inhabit her imaginary world. Since she started exhibiting her works in 1980, Nicole Taillon has won a number of prizes and distinctions, and her works, which include a bronze mural five meters wide, from part of many private and business collections.

HORSES-OF-LAKE-LAGODA – Bronze-Sculpture-24 in – 61 cm

” HORSES OF LAKE LAGODA ” Horses treated with ferric nitrate for texture; manes, hooves and tails are black; adornments, ring and claws mirror polished. From the writer Malaparte comes the tale of the tragic death of a thousand horses in the icy waters of Lake Ladoga in Russia during the winter of 1942. In trying to escape a forest fire caused by aerial bombardments, a hoard of horses jumped into the lake. Despite a recent cold snap, the lake was not frozen solid. As the horses desperately swam toward the other shore, their heads held above the water, a loud noise could be heard: the water suddenly froze, encasing the animals in ice. The next morning, the sun shone down upon the rigid manes, covered in transparent icicles. Immobilized, each head was a sculpture that in other circumstances would have been a thing of beauty. “When life and death are so close that they overlap, what is each one’s attitude? How would we react?” – Hubert Reeves . Two winged horses are swirling around one another, the spiral so intense that we are unable to determine whether they are battling or helping each other. The nostrils of one are pointing upwards, in search of air, while the other is shaking its mane, exasperated at not being able to disengage. These equids have no hooves; instead they have claws that are gripping hoof-like weights, which they can drop at will in order to take flight. One has a golden adornment in its mane, while the other has a ring in its nostril. Anecdote – I am a great lover of popular science works, particularly those of Hubert Reeves. The idea for this sculpture came to me while reading one of his books, in which he explains the fertility of imbalances. To illustrate the phenomenon of supercooling (state of instability), he recounted this tale by Malaparte. This story led me deep into philosophical reflections on human beings, life, and death. Supercooling: When cooled very rapidly, pure water can reach temperatures below its freezing point without solidifying for quite a long time. But toss a few grains of sand into it, and the water will freeze instantaneously. Likewise, water that is heated very quickly will not necessarily come to a boil when it reaches 100 degrees Celsius. This state is very unstable.

” THE SILENT WATCHMAN ” Bronze Sculpture 16 in – 40,5 cm

Anecdote – Every evening, a solitary man would come and sit in front of a campfire on the beach next to my home in North Hatley. He wore dark sunglasses and would sit and stare at the fire for hours. He seemed to be deep in thought. The contemplative vigilance that seemed to emanate from this man inspired this sculpture.

A man without eyes is sitting on a rock, immobile and calm. He is watching. For some strange reason, his blindness allows him to see more clearly; he has a thorough knowledge of what surrounds him. He sees and knows from the very depths of his being. He is probing his soul. The silent watchman also ensures a place is protected.

 

 

GEMINI ” Two male figures are sitting face to face, arms and legs entwined. Asian in appearance, their heads are shaved, except for a long ponytail. Bronze Sculpture 10 in – 25 cm with black patina for the skin and bluish hair.