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LEZIMA GOMES
DOHA
Jacinthe Lamontagne-Lecomte is a French-Quebec artist who recently opened her art exhibition titled 'What Gandhi says'. The exhibition reflects Gandhi's maxim: I don't see anything See no evil, I don't hear anything Hear no evil, I don't say a thing Speak no evil.
This exhibition will be an addition to Made in Asia, which is Lamontagne-Lecomte's permanent exhibition presented at Hwang restaurant, InterContinental Doha - The City. Gandhi tells us about loving people and about accepting differences and backgrounds."
Through the 13 portraits, Lamontagne-Lecomte has used photo transfer with mixed media on canvas. This type of artwork begins as a photograph, to which the artist adds a variety of materials to create interesting textures and colours to transform the original photograph using different mediums like oil, ink, charcoal, paper, tea and coffee.
"I wanted to find a way to introduce different faces than only Asian ones but by still doing photo transfer-mixed media. It was like a challenge for me since my inspiration comes from Asia," she said.
Previously Lamontagne-Lecomte has worked on photographs of unknown people but this exhibition represents only people she knows personally including her daughter.
"I photographed people I love, people who were able to express some feeling with their face. It isn't easy to express on canvas, play with colours and collage when the face you have in front of you is someone you know because you never know if that person will love the interpretation you will do of her or him," Lamontagne-Lecomte added.
She said that this exhibition was a huge challenge, as this time she was working more with emotions."You never know if what you have created is what the model expected from you."
For the exhibition 'What Gandhi Says' each model was expected to hide their eyes, their ears or their mouth."I asked them to pose with any three of the maxims and tell me why. So it was a little complicated," she said.
The exhibition presents people from France, Pakistan, Malaysia, India, Canada, Qatar, Cambodia, England, Seychelles, Guinea and Guadeloupe. She said,"It took a lot of organisation and planning. The first photograph was taken in Marseille in October 2015. So it took me about a year to create the entire exhibition."
Lamontagne-Lecomte has never travelled to India but said that she would have loved to travel to India and captured faces. Though the name of the exhibition sounds like it would reflect India, she explained that it is really about Gandhi's maxim and what it means, more than about the man and his origin.
About the message that she wished to drive home through the exhibition, she said,"Even if we are very different from one and other, we should learn to accept our differences. In life, some are lucky some aren't. The balance isn't even. But we all are human. I don't see anything; see with your heart. Just because the person beside you is not exactly like you, it doesn't mean that they are not worthy of being treated right. I don't hear anything; hear with your heart. Think about the distress of a homeless person in the street. I don't say a thing; speak with your heart. Speak loud and clear what you believe in. Don't be afraid. These are not the only examples; we can go on and on... it's about accepting differences."
