MAGALIE GUÉRIN
B. 1973
Magalie Guérin’s painting practice has developed through sustained experimentation with the medium’s formal and ontological possibilities. Her interest lies beyond defined systems of representation or abstraction, instead seeking to emphasize specific pictorial relationships, including those of figure/ground, pattern/color, and space/edge. Embossed checkered squares and crinkled striations overlap and adjoin with limb-like contours and gradated forms; slices of vivid orange and deep green contrast with muted earth tones and soft pastels. What distinguishes a brushstroke, a slice of solid paint, a ridge of medium from each other calls for an openness to shifting visual interpretations. This sense of cultivated interiority within each work is mirrored by the external, subjective experience of encountering it. Free from any mimetic boundaries, Guérin’s paintings invite viewers to construct their own narrative, drawing new meanings from unexpected interactions of color, texture, line, and form.
Guérin views her ceramics as a natural evolution of her painting and drawing practice, and her foundational interest in iteration and translation. Through her sculptures, she seeks to explore how the context of a two-dimensional composition may be embodied in three dimensions. Areas of rich color, raised edges, palpable textures, and amorphous shapes are re-adapted onto the sculptural form, allowing for new experiences of recognition and signification.
Magalie Guérin (born Montreal, 1973) holds an MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, where she resided for over a decade. Her work is currently the subject of the solo exhibition Orange to Rattle at Esker Foundation, Calgary, Canada. Other selected exhibitions include shows at Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago, Illinois (2025); Galerie Nicolas Robert, Toronto, Canada (2024); Sikkema Malloy Jenkins, New York (2023); and Amanda Wilkinson Gallery, London (2020). Her work is included in the public collections of the The Art Museum of West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California; the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, Québec City, Canada; Collection Hydro-Québec, Montréal, Canada; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, Illinois; and the Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky.
Guérin is the author of NOTES ON, a compilation of studio writings published by The Green Lantern Press in 2016 (second edition 2019) and teaches at SAIC and College of DuPage. She is the recipient of two Pollock-Krasner Foundation grants (2024, 2018), a Pace Award for a mid-career painter at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts (2019), and a Chinati Foundation residency (2018). Guérin is based in Marfa, Texas.
C.V. (PDF)