An explosion of gorgeous colour greets the viewer’s eye in this extraordinary abstract painting by Paul Fournier. A master colourist, Fournier is considered one of Canada’s most significant artists. This piece in wildly expressive form and colour captures imagery from a tropical paradise—bright red feathers popping against a deep sapphire blue canvas and highlighted by a rainbow of colours—yellow at its center.

Fournier received early praise from the distinguished NY art critic, Donald Kuspit who described his colourful Fauvist-like work as that of an ‘exotic modernist.’ Fauvism was a post-impressionist movement in France (think Matisse) characterized by an imaginative use of colour. In the sixties, Fournier was part of a group of gifted Toronto painters…Milly Ristvedt, K.M. Graham and David Bolduc, among them who explored the techniques and forms of abstraction.

“Painting takes energy…and it takes a very special energy…You dig down deep within yourself….it’s spiritual. ” Paul Fournier

He was born during the Great Depression in Simcoe, Ontario. He first studied at the Ontario College of Art and Design in 1959 and went on to study printmaking at McMaster University in Hamilton in 1967. Fournier also received an Honorary Doctor of Laws from McMaster in 1996 where he’d also been the artist in residence.