Fernand Toupin — Abstract Art
Fernand Toupin (1930–2009) In 1959, Toupin’s art engages in a new direction. Always interested by abstraction, the artist explores texture with a more abundant material on the canvas, where the pigments are mixed with marble dust. Toupin expresses his surrounding environment: Québec’s landscapes. “I like to feel the simmering of things as they are made. The uprising of the waves. The freshness of the snow. The ubiquity of the minerals.” In 1992, Fernand Toupin creates a series of small canvas, which will materialize this idea. The Écorces sous la neige (bark under the snow), are miniature artworks made of marble dust in which the artist has inserted small pieces of bark and other natural materials onto the canvas. These elements thus become small treasures carefully buried under the snow. Then, in 1993, he goes back to geometrical abstraction.
