David Langevin
David Langevin was born in Sherbrooke, Quebec in 1959. In his dramatic landscape and 'tree portrait' paintings, he pays a powerful tribute to the wilderness, particularly that of the Kamloops area of British Columbia, where he has lived since 1992. His work is bold and distinctive, with a high degree of technical mastery.
David Langevin - The battle against time
Born in Sherbrooke in 1959, David Langevin has lived in Kamloops, British Columbia since the early 1990s. The mild climate, untamed nature and magnificent trees of this West Coast city makes this an ideal location that the artist believes actually chose him.
Background and career
Although he began drawing and painting long before starting school, David Langevin has a career path that reflects the importance training has played in his artistic approach; after graduating in fine arts from the University of Ottawa in 1983, he spent a few years honing his skills as a painter before continuing his education at McGill University in Montreal, where he earned a Master of Arts degree in education in 1990. Finally, four years later, after defending his thesis on the techniques and materials used by the great masters, he also earned a Master of Arts from McGill University.
“ I learned to paint by studying the techniques of a wide range of painters who left this world hundreds of years ago. I imagine this is how to see Canadian landscapes through the eyes of Rembrandt. "
-David Langevin
After several years spent combining teaching and creation, David Langevin decided in 1994 to focus exclusively on his painting.
Work and art
Drawing on his vast technical knowledge and love of his medium, acrylic, David Langevin makes brilliant use of the elements of composition, colour and light, and delivers powerful tributes to untamed nature. David Langevin’s work features a strong symbolism, the battle against time. His trees rarely stand straight, but cling to life, twisted, imperfect, tilting, uneven; clutching at rock outcrops, sometimes alone, at others in groups, trunks devoid of branches or leaves. Pines and birches battling a harsh environment, equally generous and merciless.
His art is created through an elaborate system of applying multiple successive layers of glaze and impasto. He likes dramatic lighting, shadows and transparency. The result is a sensation of depth and intense internal life that moves us at a gut level.
“ I love contrast, projections and cavities, solid and hollow spaces – in a word, interstices, shapes between and under other shapes. I also pay very special attention to line and contour. Drawing matters a great deal for me. Sometimes I actually end up ‘drawing’ as I paint. "
-David Langevin
David Langevin is represented by the Au P'tit Bonheur Art Gallery since 2004, exclusively for Quebec.
