About the Sculptor and Artists

  



PROU (Lucien-Carol Proulx) is a mixed media woodcarver living in Cap-Santé near Quebec City.

His research in the visual arts takes shape in works that reveal inequities and their consequences on human beings. 

Lucien's art is characterized by the knot of the work giving impetus to the movement and also by the essence of the being sculpted on the face of the subject. 

The path of this artist is atypical, in terms of his private life, and his public professional life. 

He is introverted while being pleasantly sociable. Open to others, he transmits his joy of living with his communicative laughter.


Biography

 

"The beauty and refinement of the aesthetics of my works allow my message to be confrontational. I denounce the forbidden".

Lucien-Carol Proulx (Prou) is a former window dresser and decorator, he is interested in sculptural creation and everything that involves human nature. He has become interested in social sciences, history and art due to his extensive travel. 

All his itineraries include visits to museums and places marked by history. Lucien-Carol drinks from the sources of history. From the works of the great masters to the Bayeux tapestry, to the visit of contemporary artists' studios, all the while taking the time to have a coffee on a terrace and watch people live.

Lucien-Carol is insatiable for knowledge! Since the beginning of his career as a sculptor, his travels are self-taught studies with the objective of researching and creating visual arts. Moreover, 2019 in Italy, his interest was on the positioning of the work and the distancing of the viewer. In 2018, in Joucas near Avignon, France, Lucien-Carol visited the studio of mixed media sculptors Mieke Heybroek and Ulysse Plaud. This visit marked his determination to be a mixed media sculptor, strongly influenced his style and his freedom to create differently.

Also in 2018, he met the famous Quebec sculptor Fabien Pagé, also recognized by his peers as a restorer of religious works and ancient artworks. He is also the creator of landmark works for Quebec. These two men are linked by their passion for sculpture. Both have an admiring look at the other. Lucien-Carol was amazed by the talent of the master: the famous people he represented were undeniably realistic. Lucien-Carol's abstract figurative style amazes Fabien. The master recognizes Lucien-Carol's artistic singularity, his creativity and the characteristics of his style.

 Speaking of Lucien-Carol, Fabien says: "He has another eye".

It is in the node of the work that the movement originates. It is there that Lucien-Carol transmits to the spectator an exhilarating fascination where his imagination enters in action. The spectator is positioned on a forecourt from which it is possible to see an open portal and, from this glance, the spectator becomes aware that only the crossing of the portal gives access to the conscience. His works challenge. They overcome our resistance. They subjugate like a memory inscribed on our face that we see only when we look at our reflection in a mirror. Like a stab on wood, the works of Lucien-Carol mark the spectator by the agitation that they provoke with the emergence of the interpretation that it makes. The word that Lucien-Carol takes is the one that he writes on the wood in order to form it by struggling with the power that his empathy gives him. 

The wood, its resistance and the strength to create from this rebellious material, manifest his will to bring out of the shadows what must be revealed. He invites us to witness a moment, a fact that remains camouflaged or invisible. Lucien-Carol's works are a face-to-face encounter with compassion for oneself and for the other. It is an encounter in our humanity and the human race. An encounter where the barriers of silence collapse.

Like his work Tragedy of the Child Slaves in the Mines of the Congo which denounces the slavery of children in mines in Africa. The toxicity of the mines puts their lives in danger and their faces, greyed by the dust, are the witnesses. 

Jazz in the Heart of Spruce shows a double bass player who is invisible because of his art. 

The Omerta challenges us through a relational void defined by gags showing a scene captured from the silence, blindness and deafness announcing an inevitably destructive drama for a couple. This relationship.

 

Artistic approach

 

To express my artistic impulse, I chose wood to which I add other mediums according to my imagination. The materials and colors all have their own meanings. Individually significant, but also in their reciprocity. These mediums convey the message of my work to the viewer. They are a look at the prohibitions that constrain the integrity of the being. For when our integrity is affected, it is no longer possible to be ourselves. It emerges a vulnerability to the glance of the other from which we evaluate our value. This reasoning is an enclosure, a loop whose effect is not desirable; since the injustice towards oneself limits our action so as to make us insensitive to iniquities. I present to the viewer my vision of a page of individual or societal history, in order to disrupt the unjust, unjustifiable and unjustified reference points with which we have been educated and instructed: where all paradigms are constructed.

The aestheticism of my work allows my message to be heard, it can be labeled by many as traditional, conventional. However, the message I convey is current and present. I could not denounce what did not happen. The temporality between the aestheticism of my works and my message is the signifier of the duration of the iniquity.

I represent at the same time the source of the prohibitions, their effects, their presence and the desire of every human being to proclaim the reconstruction of its authenticity. I denounce the silences, the looks that turn away and the consequences of their acquiescence. 

My works are the representation of the paradox of confinement and the display of what it produces. Through my works, what has been repressed and hidden takes its form in order to exist, to assert itself and to be seen by all. My works show the passage back and forth of my exit from the void.


Artistic CV

ART TRAINING

Polyvalente Neufchâtel, Quebec
1969-1971
Presentation technique
Creation and installation of set decorations, modeling of clothing, advertising drawings

Wood sculpting with master carver Fabien Pagé, Portneuf
2018-2023
Woodcarving techniques, knowledge of tools and types of wood.

Advanced training in wood carving with Fabien Pagé, Portneuf
Since 2023
Wood carving techniques, positioning of the work and the distance of the viewer, arrangement of materials.

Cohort: Arts Entrepreneurship with Art X Terra, online 
2024 (12 weeks)
Training to accelerate artistic progression and entrepreneurial skills to succeed in the art world.


CAREER

Exhibition Commissionner

  • 2024 (October 11-14) Trio exhibition Canvases, Wood, Fires Armand-Fortier Centre in Cap-Santé.
  • 2023 (November), Tribute exhibition: Fabien Pagé and his sculptor students. Moulin de la Chevrotière, Deschambault


Wood sculpture animator 
2023 (October) Galery de L'Escale du Roy, Animation and demonstration for the Days of Culture.

Window decorator
1973–1985 Lucien-Carol Proulx - Display
Create sets for children's stores and theaters. Provide set rental and installation services. Decorate shop windows, interiors, various shops and shopping centres.

Various 
1986–2016
Human Resources Companies | User training, Job search coaching, Customer service


EXHIBITIONS

2024 (October 11-14) Trio exhibition Toiles, Bois, Centre Armand-Fortier in Cap-Santé, 20 works exhibited.

2024 (June 29 and 30) 22nd Cap-Santé Symposium, Rich in Colours 11 works exhibited. 3rd choice of the public.

2024 (June 15 to December 1) Galerie de L'Escale du Roy, 4 works exhibited

2024 (June 15 and 16) Visit'Arts-Québec Symposium 7 works exhibited

2023 (November 4 and 5) Tribute exhibition:  Fabien Pagé and his sculptor students. Moulin de la Chevrotière, Deschambault 7 works exposed

2023 (June 23 to October 10) Galerie de L'Escale du Roy, 5 works exposed

2022 (June 15 to October 10) Galerie de L'Escale du Roy, 10 works exposed


MEDIA

In December 2024, Report in the newspaper Le Citoyen pages 20 and 21: Arts activities: Lucien-Carol Proulxhttps://capsante.qc.ca/assets/documents/Citoyen-Decembre-2024-VFF.pdf

October 3, 2024, CJSR program Info Portneuf: interview on the trio exhibition Toiles Bois Feux as an exhibiting sculptor and curator as well as with Johanne Beaulieu painter exhibiting: https://youtu.be/nxxRswtkVOg?t=2535

October 2, 2024 2023, Report in the Courrier de Portneuf newspaper page 9: Exhibition Toiles Bois Feux Cap-Santé Lucien-Carol Proulx Courrier de Portneuf du 2 octobre 2024 - Courrier de Portneuf


In May 2024, audio-visual report on my artistic approach for the Symposium Riche en couleurs by aubertinage.com, https://youtu.be/PSQmbAjnjSI

In March 2023, Report in the newspaper Le Citoyen page14: Cap-Santé Essential pole of attraction for and through the arts: Lucien-Carol Proulx https://capsante.qc.ca/assets/documents/Citoyen-Mars-2024-V2.pdf



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