Martin Saint-Laurent
The main goal of St. Laurent’s work is to signal and make known the presence of an object in a given place (gallery or in situ space) through the use of specific aesthetic procedures, thus ensuring that it will make a cognitive impact. He begins by trying to create a gestalt (the immediate capture of the totality) through the use of simple geometric forms. In this way, the viewer does not experience any resistance in attempting to understand complex forms or in trying to imagine separate portions of the object. The unit rectangular form, drawn to a human scale, requires the viewer to accept the existence of the work within the exhibit space. St. Laurent often uses imprints that are not made by direct contact, but which do refer to all kinds of unexpected turns of reality or of a memory; thus a multitude of points of color on a panel might evoke the quantity and the brilliance of the visual traces that a cloud of fireflies at night creates on our perception.