Robert Therrien

Not only in the sculptures, but in his drawings as well, Therrien managed to give a special magic to the commonplace. The atmosphere in these works is playful and lighthearted, with a touch of humor and nostalgia, and occasionally a more ominous undercurrent. A striking aspect here is the variety of materials and techniques. In the works on paper, drawing is frequently combined with photography and serigraphy, and Therrien uses materials such as ink, pencil, chalk, paint and bleach in order to color the surface and apply or leave blank spaces of form. 

Just as in the sculptures, the employed motifs – little demons, the face of a baby, a small head and pointing hand, a gallows, bow or small clouds of smoke – are part of our collective memory. They often have their origins in the visual language of the comic strip, whose compactness Therrien admired. Such succinctness also characterizes his own work on paper, in which a single motif dominates the image surface like an icon.

One of the motifs is based on the demon figure that serves as a logo on cans of Underwood deviled ham. This horned devil, with his trident and arrow-tipped tail, has been cropping up in a great many of Therrien’s drawings over the past twenty years. Sometimes this figure appears as a silhouette against a white surface; other times the little tormentor looms forth among the wallpaper’s faded flowers, or he has been reduced to small dots in a reddish field. In the works on paper, too, scale plays a significant role. Here, however, Therrien concentrates on small rather than large motifs, but while appearing to be insignificant they nonetheless dominate the image surface.