Vost Gallery, Pronovost Art Gallery

QC H1X 2M8 Montréal
Canada
Phone: 514 835 7438
Email : jeanpronovost@hotmail.com

Jonathan Gagnon (Assistant)

Jean Pronovost THE SPHINX

Jean Pronovost DISMANTLING GRACE

Jean Pronovost TALES FROM THE PLASTIC ISLAND

Jean Pronovost BRIDE OF THE COSMOPHORE

Jean Pronovost THE BACCHANTE

Jean Pronovost THE MAENAD

Jean Pronovost THE SPHINX [BRONZE EDITION]

Jean Pronovost VIRTUS ET POTESTAS (BRONZE EIDTION)

Jean Pronovost ÉL HANAC PACHA

Jean Pronovost THE CULT OF NOTHINGNESS

About the Artist

Regarded as the guardian of civilization for the Egyptians and the one who puts a man into question with her riddle in several ancient Greek plays and myths, the Sphinx is a timeless and powerful symbolic figure. She is an ancient symbol of equilibrium and justice, one with a dual nature: her beautiful female body has the paws and tail of a lion that represent the power of the earth, and the wings of an eagle that signify the air and spirit. This dualism brings us back to questioning ourselves, as individuals and as a society. We must strive to keep in balance these two natures we all possess: our materialism and power and then our idealism and compassion.We find the Sphinx here forcefully kneeling on the chest of a banker who is vomiting money while lying on a safe. She is pinning him down, an act of overcoming the immense greed and abusive power occurring in our contemporary world. She seeks justice for all.

This landscape painting depicts in muted grey and brown tones the modern barbarism the artist witnessed in some areas of the Amazon. Places where humanity’s pricking black thumb plucks away nature’s lush green touch until all that grows are the rotten fruits of greed and tyranny. Caustic smoke is ever-present here, it replaces the sweet aromas of flora and fauna. There is not a bird or cricket song to be heard.

To the right there is the monstrous mining machine, a harbinger of death and mayhem. Ironically, Indigenous people have referred to white men as ‘earth eaters’, and this machine does exactly that! This behemoth hollows out the slaughtered forest floor, excavating auric treasures to feed markets of speculation and the pockets of bloated men. What does it actually mean to be rich? And who is the poorer for all of this?The unstoppable road to progress forges ahead to new horizons of extinction and inequality – no one is left behind!

The woman who stands at the center of the plastic island contains as many symbols as there is garbage in her belly. This beautiful woman filled with trash and apathy is one we cannot ignore or unsee. She is our present and our future – corruption, death, and beautiful toxic garbage. But within this figure that symbolizes the devastating clash of the natural and the artificial worlds of man, there are two messages to see: a warning of the worst and a hope for a brighter future. While we humans are trashing and contaminating our planet and ourselves, nature and its wildlife will eventually fight back and outlast us.

This beautiful free-spirited woman playfully dancing on top of a turtle’s shell is not all fun and games. The turtle is an old symbol, seen in ancient Greece, reflected in their temple architecture and on their coins, and in ancient Rome as a symbol for fertility, and by the Mayans and other native cultures, representing the earth. For the latter, the earth we inhabit is actually a giant prehistoric turtle that is swimming in primordial water.

The bride dances about on the back of the turtle in her ancient, fancy jeweled belt without any care or respect, and with her eyes closed. She is blind to what is really going on, a willful ignorance so she can keep having fun. She is an allegory warning us about the dangers of narcissism, ignorance, and vanity. The bride is playing with an octopus, stretching it about and over her head. The octopus is a symbol of nature, cleverness, and knowledge, as well as it is an intelligent predator: old legends spoke of giant octopus that would attack boats and if caught would attack people and pull out their eyes. It is also regarded as a creature that cannot be manipulated, and yet she is bending it to her will and without thinking of the consequences or its own nature.

This Bacchante sculpture just screams classical Roman elegance: the column base, the beautiful, nearly naked, young woman with eyes closed and luscious lips in a casual pose who is about to enjoy a bunch of grapes. She’s beautiful but sadly so ignorant. She’ll scream in horror and disgust when she bites into that worm. Talk about sour grapes.

Bacchantes were the priestesses and female followers of Bacchus, the ancient Roman god of wine and wine-making, the grape harvest, fertility, art and culture, spring renewal, and frenzy. They wore fox skins while they danced maniacally to loud music. Sexual promiscuity was the norm. Cultist rites included whirling and screaming while dancing to inspire greater and greater ecstasy and enthusiasm so that the worshipers’ soul could be temporarily freed from their earthly body and able to reach Bacchus. These rites climaxed with crazy feats of strength like uprooting trees or tearing a bull apart with their bare hands and eating it.

This sculpture of a beautiful, young Grecian Maenad depicts her relaxing and tasting some sweet fruit. With her eyes closed and her head slightly tipped backward against her hand, she looks as if she has not a care in the world. That worm lurking in her grapes looks pretty stressed though, and he’s going to leave a bad taste in her mouth.

Maenads appear in both ancient Greece and then in Rome, as the priestesses and followers of the god Dionysus and later Bacchus. These were the gods of the grape harvest, wine-making and wine, fruitfulness and fertility, theatre, and religious ecstasy. Maenads were often portrayed as erratic entranced women inspired by Dionysus into states of euphoric frenzy while they danced and drank, and wore fawn skins.
This Grecian-styled Maenad with a Caucasian face is mounted atop a column and has some symbolic twists to convey a warning to our contemporary world. We see ourselves in her, and this familiarity should make her message more urgent and clear: we are repeating the mistakes of her time and headed for the same fate.

This monumental painting is paying homage to the Incan descendants of Cusco, and to the ancient Andean Civilizations and indigenous people across the world that have regenerated, reclaimed, and risen above a dark history of colonialism. This canvas brings together the past and the present, along with man and nature, to show us a modern-day depiction of a Phoenix rising from the ashes. This piece is all about connecting with the past: the place where we find old wisdom, spiritual teachings, and historical lessons. The knowledge we gain from this communion enriches our understanding of humanity and ourselves, and this can lead to a brighter future of peace and tranquility, and rich in spirituality.

On this canvas the three aspects of the old Incan cosmology are present: the world of the living (kay pacha) that consists of all perceptible entities like humans, animals, and plants; the world of above (hanac pacha) that included the sun, moon, sky and constellations; and the world of below (ucu pacha), or inner world of the dead and new life to come, that is often associated with harvest and fertility. These realms are simultaneously temporal and spatial.

This monumental painting is a street scene of delights containing an allegory about our contemporary lifestyle. With the use of fantastical symbolism and vibrant colours and a seamless blend of imagination and reality, we see ourselves without any mask of idealization. So many people we run across every day are looking for something, but they aren’t finding what they seek – they seem so lost or empty inside. We’ve all come across a businessman walking and talking on his cell phone; he’s so busy trying to close a deal and get his commission that he is otherwise utterly oblivious to the world around him. Here, we see him depicted as dragging an iron ball that is chained to his ankle, representing the prisoner he really is to capitalism. Like him, each of the people we see in this scene is headed somewhere, but they don’t question why and, most importantly, is this the right way to go?

Exhibiting Artists

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