July 2, 2008

Canadian Artist, Andre’ Desjardins will display his most recent collection in the Eldorado Hotel Casino’s Gold Room. The artists’ reception will be held on Fri., July 18, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. The reception will feature delicious hours d’oeuvres, champagne and a welcome from the artist himself with twenty pieces on display.

Desjardins’ work evokes an almost serene and tranquil feeling. His muted and subtle colors coax the viewer into a dreamlike mystery that Desjardins reveals in his paintings. Works to be featured in the showing include "Life is in front of me", "Dedication", "Genevieve" and more.

Desjardins’ techniques include creating art directly on the canvas and thrashing it to introduce cracking that conveys the fragility of life. He has embraced the freedom that pigment and canvas provide, to develop an “emotionalist” style that is simultaneously expressionist and humanist, fusing the figurative with the abstract. As Desjardins’ paintings continue to evolve, the melding of the old and the new, the Da Vinci with the Jackson Pollock, becomes more apparent.

“With my brush, for a brief moment of painting, I celebrate the right to live, to love, to speak,” says Desjardins. “Art is important because it is a universal and timeless language…it makes me feel immortal… to leave something that will last. It’s my way to communicate that kind of emotion.”

Desjardins credits the Spanish painter Antoni Tàpies with having the greatest influence on his artistic style, although he considers the untimely death of his father the most profound influence on his life and his art.