by Arlan Hess
Although for some, the Montreal concerts were a chaotic blend of an out of control GA line, late night rain, and post-show confusion, my weekend in Canada was quite the opposite. I met an old high school friend, Susan, in the airport on Thursday afternoon where we immediately began to plan at what restaurants we were going to eat, what sights we were going to see, and to what albums we were going to listen in advance of Saturday night’s show. It was her first U2 concert, so I wanted her experience to be perfect. On our schedule was a visit to the Galerie d’art Émeraude located at 301 St-Paul East in Old Town where Pierre Bellemare was exhibiting his U2 inspired paintings. I checked out his website before we landed but wanted to see the work in person before I decided whether I thought the show was a gimmick or a true expression of artistic talent. After seeing the paintings close up, and talking with the artist for more than a half hour, I have concluded that Bellemare’s work evocatively demonstrates why the band has such worldwide appeal.
When I first saw the work online, I didn’t recognize anything in the work that pointed to U2. I was grasping for a lyric or title that I recognized as belonging to the band; not finding one, I was unable to connect the paintings to anything familiar. In the gallery, that changed. When discussing abstract painting with Bellemare, I asked him if he thought U2’s lyrics were abstract and that is why his interpretation was so conceptual. His response stunned me. With a thick French accent, he confided, “Most of the time, I cannot understand what they are saying. My English is not very good.” This admission completely changed my appreciation of his work. Rather than illustrating a particular album or song, the artist interprets what he feels when he listens to the music. The work is about color and line, not sentimental attachment to narrative. Of course I couldn’t recognize U2 in the work; as a native English speaker, I cannot separate lyrics from music. Like someone who has lost one of his five senses, Bellemare compensates for not understanding the band’s language with a strong artistic vision. It is this same intuitive connection that U2 fans worldwide feel with the band, and often, with each other.
Like U2’s music, Bellemare’s paintings are textured and multi-layered. Because a canvas can take years to finish, no one painting represents any one song. Although Bellemare has been listening to U2 for thirty years, he has only listened to them in the studio for two years—and the studio is now the only place where he listens to them. The artist has no set routine in regards to music selection. He may keep a song on repeat or he may listen to album after album. Bellemare says he is a big fan of No Line on the Horizon, but he also likes to work while listening to Achtung Baby; although he finds the band’s later work easier to paint to, he does find inspiration in the melody of “The Unforgettable Fire.” Bellemare prefers acrylic paint because it dries faster than oil. Therefore, if he doesn’t like where a piece is going, he paints over it with a background color and starts again. This process results in an irregular surface that invites the viewer to stroke the canvas, a rare practice that the artist encourages. Like U2 concerts, Bellemare’s U2 inspired paintings are full body encounters that challenge the aural, visual and tactile.
Although Bellemare may have an image or idea unrelated to U2 in mind before he begins, his process is purely gesture; he brushes or throws the paint onto the canvas (as opposed to Jackson Pollock who used a dripping technique) in such a way that creates movement and energy. On some canvasses, that energy moves horizontally across the canvas. In others, it moves through and out of the canvas into the viewer’s space. In both cases, a frame intensifies the urgency by graphically containing the movement and creating tension between what happens on the canvas and what exists beyond its boundaries. One painting, “Japan Highway,” reminds Bellemare of his time in Tokyo. Almost throbbing with glowing reds, whites and shades of living gray, the canvas pulls the viewer’s eye from left to right and back again across the canvas as if she is trapped in a foreign city of neon and steel. The title itself has nothing to do with the Irish band from Dublin, but the painting couldn’t exist without U2’s shaping influence.
During our interview, I asked Bellemare the impossible question, “What is your favorite U2 song?” I can’t answer that question myself, so I didn’t really expect him to answer it, but I wanted to hear his response. He has neither a favorite album nor painting, but after some thought, he showed me a canvas that was leaning with several others against a back wall of the gallery—the manager hadn’t chosen that one to hang, but he brought it along anyway. For Bellemare, the piece embodies U2. “Parcours,” like “Japan Highway,” is a rectangular canvas wider than it is tall. But, instead of a palette limited to three or four major colors, “Parcours” includes a wide spectrum of hues, including vibrant yellows and oranges and cooling tones of green and blue. To me, the piece includes more than it excludes reminding me a little of the line “I believe in the Kingdom come when all the colors will bleed into one.” Although, technically, it wasn’t part of the show, “Parcours” was my favorite painting of the lot—not because in it I could finally recognize something of U2, but because the painting captures how I feel when I listen to their music: like I am about to break into blossom.
An accomplished graphic designer from Quebec City, Bellemare comes across as shy and sincere. Inspired by the band’s philanthropy, he donates ten per cent of his earnings from his U2 paintings to The Global Fund. Despite my fears before seeing the exhibition, I found nothing about his work derivative or gimmicky. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Bellemare’s work challenges U2 fans’ intimacy with the music and provokes his audience to examine how individuals experience U2 songs in unique, and perhaps cultural, ways. For me, Montreal was about looking backward and forward at the same time. For Susan, it was the culmination of a lifetime of waiting to see U2 in concert. Meeting the artist and seeing his paintings in Montreal left me contemplating how U2 fans interpret their favorite songs. Each of us understands the lyrics in our own way, but the beat of the music connects us all on a visceral level whether we live in the US, Canada, Europe or Africa. It is this universal rhythm that joins us not only to the band but also to other fans. Bellemare captures that spirit on canvas.
(c) @U2/Hess, 2011.