Laurent Vaillancourt

Laurent Vaillancourt participated in the cultural awakening movement of French Ontario in the early 1970s and remains intimately linked to this community. Hearst, in northern Ontario, remains his home base. The artist has been and continues to be fascinated by the steel cable, a true metaphor for his deep desire to link together, through this symbolic material, the people of the small communities with which he identifies. Steel cable is rarely used as a raw material. Its flexibility, its curves, its elegance and its torsional strength are the attributes that Vaillancourt explores by manipulating it. Found objects are also increasingly elements that form part of its basic materials. For the artist, the object carries meaning. The object is an artefact. It is used to tell stories.