The artwork blends perfectly with the aerial space in the lobby of the Marcel-Giroux community centre, thanks to the trompe-l’oeil treatment of an architectural element that helps to create a direct relationship between the painting and the site.
The artist has produced a triptych the themes of which are landscape, the human figure, and the theatre. The work brings together images that amalgamate various registers of the pictorial tradition. For instance, the forest views become, in a sense, a refuge in which characters from the theatre world, here the commedia dell’arte character Gilles, generates a visual order that is not strictly narrative but also allegorical. The subject of a painting by Watteau titled Pierrot dit Le Gilles (1718), the character has historically symbolized melancholy. Portrayed here as a puppet, he references the transformative power of artistic creation.

The project was produced in the context of the L’art public dans les arrondissements de Montréal initiative launched as part of the implementation of the City of Montreal’s Cultural Development Policy, with the goal of encouraging greater accessibility to arts and culture.