Artist Statement June 2025– Karine Guyon

Driven by an expressive urgency to apply paint and make marks intuitively, without overthinking, my work has gradually evolved to include a hierarchy of recurring shapes such as grids and circles. My work often reflects on the human condition, spirituality, and possibilities of life outside the temporal. As a child, I experienced the deeply humbling and transformative journey of losing a parent. The lifelong consequences of grief have left an indelible mark on the way I navigate the world. Lately, those experiences have found their way into my work. Childhood memories of cherished toys and forgotten moments have resurfaced, informing my color choices and overall aesthetic. The tension between rigid structures and chaotic spaces mirrors the inner experience of this journey and the search for balance through order. For me, painting serves as both a map and an escape, bridging the material and spiritual realms.

Time is a dynamic force in my work, as each painting evolves through recurring cycles of layering, scraping, and scratching the surface, processes which can last for years. Within these layers of oil paint, I bury and excavate unconventional materials such as metallic, light-reactive pigments, and other light-reflective matters. This approach to constructing a painting refers to the passage of time on surfaces. In this process, large amounts of material accumulate on the floor. I often re-manipulate these remnants, which otherwise would be considered studio waste, by transforming them into sculptural paintings that I consider artifacts of my two-dimensional artworks. I pay special attention to the edges of my paintings, which I texture and extend through deliberate application of extra painting materials and recycled fabrics. Through this continual process, I invite a deeper reflection on the human experience, its cycles of transformation, and I invite the viewer to a personal dialogue between the temporal and the eternal.

Biography

Karine Guyon is a self-taught artist who has lived and worked in major Canadian cities such as Vancouver, Toronto, and Ottawa, as well as in Barcelona, Spain. She is currently working in Montreal. She has exhibited her work at Diane Farris Gallery; Van., LES Gallery; Van., Chatham-Kent Gallery; ON., Propeller Gallery; TO., The Science and Technology Museum of Ottawa, ON.. The Hampton Gallery; MTL., Galerie POPOP Gallery; MTL., I Like Your Work; NY., Deanna Evans Project, NY., Art Mur, MTL, and the Canopy Studios in NYC.

Her work was selected by a jury to be part of the 2024-25 Canopy Program, resulting in an exhibition in Chelsea, NYC, in June 2025. In 2022-2023, fifteen of her paintings were purchased by Turveta Holdings, Dubai. Her paintings can also be found in other corporate collections such as the Porter Housing Society, VAN, and Simon Fraser University; Van. Her work can also be found in private collections in Canada, Europe, and New Zealand.

In 2015, Guyon received the Emerging Artist Grant awarded by the Ontario Arts Council. From 2019-2022, she has been awarded several Operating Art Grants from the Montreal Council for the Arts and the City of Montreal. In 2023, she was the recipient of Les Fonds Serge Lemoyne, and in 2025 was a finalist for the grant FORCGAL. Guyon has received several private art grants for her collaborative analog and digital installation entitled Kaleidoscopy.