Gregory Montreuil is an American artist living and working between Marseille, France and Arrey, New Mexico, USA. His work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in the US and Europe.
Montreuil’s work is in the collections of:
Yale University, New Haven, CT.
The Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford CT.
The National Gallery, Washington, DC
The Weatherspoon Museum, Greensboro, NC
The Rourke Museum, Moorhead, MN
Prudential Insurance, Newark, NJ
The Wurlitzer Foundation, Taos, NM
Artist Statement Gregory Montreuil 2017
I’m very interested in structure which is why I eliminate all extraneous compositional elements I could afford to jettison. I worked solely in black white and grey for many years but recently color has entered as an important structural element. Working on either canvas or paper, the process resembles a wrestling match with the disparate elements thrown and forced into some kind of resolution. This may sound like a fairly ascetic process, but ultimately it’s quite freeing. No two works are ever alike in tone or emotion and the compositional possibilities are endless. What’s more, I can be in the moment, respecting the mark as it happens. It’s like having the decision-making process of a painting laid completely bare.
The lexicon of possible marks, too, seems endless. There are precise “strikes” of paint; crawling lines that change their thickness subtly, as they meander towards empty space; loaded brushmarks that start at the top of the surface full of pigment, then swoop down to nest or blend into each other-all of which I affect, thanks to a range of brushes I’ve grown attached to over the years. Generally I work quickly to establish the structure of the painting in the first secession; sometime later I go back to the work and amend, edit and sharpen the marks as needed. Affecting a sense of proportion and balance is very important to me.
That said, lately I’ve been using a wet-on wet working method. It is more daring and risky, (it creates a time constraint and is more difficult to alter). I do the latter works on stretched canvases, each titled and dated separately. I listen to snippets of conversation overheard in my travels which become open ended titles for my work. I’m always having a kind of dialogue, a conversation if you will, with chance and unpredictability in my works. Once the individual works are hung together, they’re able to have a larger, more concrete and tangible “conversation” with each other.
At this point, I should also note that I’m a published writer, (mostly of art criticism, for local weeklies and international monthlies), and that language plays a big part in how I see my world. It’s my desire to use my written criticism not to harshly deconstruct, so much as to open up a work of art to help people see and understand. Likewise, I also want to explore how verbal sounds resonate with my own work, particularly in their titles: “Just Wait,” “Who’s There,” “Four Times a Day,” “Make Me” – all are actual snippets of conversations I’ve overheard around me in the city or on the subway; some of them from one-sided cell phone conversations,. I write down these moments of open – ended conversation, because, like my painted work they seem so open to personal interpretation. These words sound really specific, and yet you can make of them what you wish. I like the notion that people are making up their own narratives to go with my abstract work.
Last year I visited Cezanne’s studio in Aix-en-Provence, and what I saw there has stayed with me ever since. It’s a beautiful space. Preserved intact, as if the master had just left and would be back any moment: his hat and coat on a hook, canvases ready in his backpack, the exact grey of the walls in the tone he’d chosen carefully for himself (Cezanne, saw the value of eliminating color when necessary, to see more clearly what he was trying to accomplish). Overall, the experience made me think: perhaps the real legacy an artist can leave behind is the here and now; a trace of the exact, and utterly subjective moment in which he lived.
EDUCATION:
Bachelor of Science Degree, Cum Laude, University of Minnesota, Moorhead, MN
Art Education
SOLO & TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS:
2016 “Dynamic Force/True Colors” Galerie Du Tableau, Marseille, France
2014 “Control Alt Delete” Galerie Du Tableau, Marseille France
2013 “Wrestling with Space” The Rourke Museum, Moorhead, MN
2010 Rio Bravo Fine Art, Truth or Consequences, NM
2008 Galerie Du Tableau, Marseille, France
2005 Ou Galerie Marseille France
2002 Galerie Du Tableau, Marseille, France
2001 Galerie Du Tableau, Marseille, France
1998 Jeffery Coploff Fine Art, New York, NY
1996 Annika Sundvik Gallery New York, NY
1989 Julian Pretto Gallery New York, NY
1988 Julian Pretto Gallery New York, NY
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2015 The 56th Invitational, Rourke Museum, Moorhead, MN
2014 “Le Show Des Amis” Showroom Gowanus, Brooklyn, NY
The 55th Invitational, Rourke Museum, Moorhead, MN
2013 “Julian Pretto Gallery” Minus Space, Brooklyn, NY
The54th Invitational, Rourke Museum, Moorhead, MN
“The Moby Project”, Neoteric Gallery, Amagansett, NY
“Paper Mirror Torn”, Brian Morris Gallery, New York, NY
2012 “The 53rd Invitational” Rourke Museum, Moorhead MN
“Group Show” Tricycle, Marseille, France
2011 “Carte Blanche”, Analix Forever Galerie, Geneva, Switzerland
“Art in a Box” Cheryl Pelavin Gallery, New York, NY
“Benefit “, Samaratains, New York, NY
“Summer Invitational”, Rourke Art Museum, Moorhead, MN
“Collaboration with Yves Musard: La Casita, Las Crurces, New Mexico
“The Real LR Word” Ligne Roset New York, NY
“It’s All Good (Apocalypse Now)”, Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2010 “Abstract 100”, University of Minnesota at Moorhead, Moorhead MN
It’s a Wonderful Tenth, Side Show Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
Feature Gallery “Power to the People”
2009 Art and Democracy IV, Visual Artists Guild Gallery H, New York, NY
Tricycle Open Studio, Marseille France
Tandem Global Partners, NY Group Show
Sierra Vista Hospital, Truth of Consequences NM, Viewing Program
2007 Entr’Arts Grenoble France, Group Show
2002 The Work Space, New York, NY “Blobs Wiggles and Dots, Webs and
Crustillations curated by Lucio Pozzi
2001 Weatherspoon Gallery, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, North Carolina
New Acquisitions
Catherine Moore Fine Art New YORK, NY Group Show
2000 Le Salon for Art Collectors,
1999 Margaret Thatcher Projects New York, NY
Kunstlerhaus Hamburg, Germany, Fur Trans
1998 Galerie Barrouyer Paris France Group Show
1996 Wadsworth Athenaeum, Harford CT: Acquiring Art in the 90’s: The Julian Pretto
Collection
1993 The Century Club New York, NY Artists for the Richard Brown Baker Collection
1992 Pamela Auchincloss Gallery New York, NY Contemporary Surfaces Curated by
Rick Ward
1991 Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center Buffalo, NY A Question of Paint Curated by
Charles Wright Jr.
Publications:
2013 “Julian Pretto Gallery at Minus Space” New York Observer, Oct 1, 2013 by
by Andrew Russeth
Arts and Humanities Newsletter, University of Minnesota, Moorhead. (Cover and
Feature)
“The Main Event” Fargo Forum, April 28, 2013
“Crookston Native, Montreuil’s Art on Display” Crookston Times, June 4, 2013
2012 “Get There First, Decide Promptly, The Richard Brown Baker Collection of Postwar Art” Yale University Press (book)
2010 The Herald, Truth or Consequences, NM Nov, 24th 2010 “Black and White & Felt All Over” by Kathleen Sloan
2011 INK, Las Cruces, NM “Black and White” by Kathleen Sloan
2006 “560 Broadway: A New York Drawing Collection at Work, 1991-2006 By Amy Eshoo (book)
2001 “A Question of Paint” Essay by Charles Wright Jr. Hallwalls, Buffalo, NY
1998 Art Papers July/August Amanda Church and Gregory Montreuil by Elisabeth Condon
1998 The Boston Globe Oct 15, “Art Grounded in Earth; bursting out and in” by Cate McQuaid
M/E/A/N/I/N/G #20, New York, NY
1995 M/E/A/N/I/N/G #16, New York, NY
RESIDENCIES
2001 The Wurlitzer Foundation Taos, NM
COLLECTIONS
The Wurlitzer Foundation, Taos, NM
Yale University, New Haven CT
Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford CT
The National Gallery Washington, DC
Weatherspoon Art Gallery , Greensboro, North Carolina
The Rourke Museum and Gallery, Moorhead, MN
Prudential Insurance , Newark, NJ
ART INSTRUCTOR
Goddard Riverside Community Center, New York, NY
1997-2015
Council House, New York, NY 2012-2015
S.T.A.R. Center, New York, NY 2013-2015
Guest Lecturer “Materiality and Social Sculpture, Parson School of Design, New York,
NY
Born Crookston Minnesota
WRITER: Flash Art International Art Magazine Milan Italy, Contemporary Magazine, London, England, The New Art Examiner, Chicago Ill. The Villager, New York, NY and catalogue essays
.