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THE OTHER, MICHAEL BRODEUR By
Wim Roefs
“At first
glance,” Michael Brodeur says, “my work is about many things: exacting formal
balance, quality of edge, light, space and form, subtle surface and color, or
abstraction through selective editing of shape, texture and detail.” Collectively,
Brodeur continues, these formal characteristics “create a poetic clarity
through which metaphysical events occur: a tense ‘dialogue’ between two objects
placed precisely on a table, a mysterious meeting at the edge of shadow and
light, and the resounding silence of solitude.” But the work is not just about metaphysical
dialogues, meetings and silences. “My work is a personal narrative. Each
painting, every drawing is an autobiographical recounting. They all speak to
relationship, either one with self or with others.”
Brodeur’s
work is autobiographical in the immediate sense of dealing with his personal
life, including love relationships that didn’t last. Some paintings relate
specifically to his experiences as a gay man. “The works are,” Brodeur says, “in
part a dismantling of stereotypes, reaction to prejudice, historical tutorials,
humor in the face of adversity and, most importantly, the emphasis of what we
have in common over our differences. In essence, the particulars of my life
such as love, intimate relationships, loneliness, joy, friendships, and
childhood abuse become a lens through which to view and relate with universal
human experience.”
The
paintings also are autobiographical in the broader sense of Brodeur’s identity
as someone from a working class and Catholic background who is gay. His
preference for painting humble, mundane objects such as plastic cups, tin bowls
or throwaway containers, focusing on their forms rather than utility and redeeming
them as worthy, even beautiful objects resonates both with his Catholic and
working class background. “Christianity is full of references to the
transformation of humble matter into something of nobler substance, within the
context of the occurrence: water into wine, bread into the Eucharist. In my
childhood the Gospel read at Mass emphasized this transformative aspect. Of
particular resonance is the reading from Matthew 23:12 – He who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself, will
be exalted.”
Using
mundane objects also is a rebuke of upper-class assumptions about the lower and
working classes’ lack of refined sensibilities, civic virtues, aspirations and
ambitions, Brodeur says. It is, furthermore, a critique of the increasingly
unsustainable notion of a classless society and of the American ideal that hard
work and determination is all it takes to rise as high as you want. “I don’t
resent the upper classes,” Brodeur says, “but I am thumbing my nose at some of
the assumptions and smugness found within that class, including the myth of
self-made wealth and the self-righteous blaming of the working- and under-classes
for not being more successful.”
Which
aspect of his background is most important for his life and work is impossible
to determine, Brodeur says. “How can you separate the components? One thing
that ties it all together is the sense of being ‘other.’
In this sense, being gay carries more stigma than the other two, but all
conspire along with being an artist, being of French-Canadian descent, being a
small person in a big person world, etc., to position me outside of mainstream
culture. This is an advantageous place from which to observe, analyze and make
connections between my work and the dominant culture, which I could not do if I
felt more included.”
Wim Roefs is the owner of if ART Gallery
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