COMPLETELY BANANAS

In 2019, controversial Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan taped a banana to the wall at Miami's Art Basel and it sold for $120,000. This created an explosion in the art world without a doubt and it was all over the news. In response to it all I had made a realistic painting of the taped banana on canvas with vulgarities written on it. This was my "middle finger" attitude to the absurdity of it all. This frustration was not towards the artist himself, Cattelan has done some very interesting work and is known to be controversial. In fact, come to think of it, there was some brilliance to it all since it was all over the news. There is no such thing as bad publicity, right? Was it all a planned, publicity stunt or was it done in the spur of the moment? Who knows?

My piece was rather a protest towards the art world as a whole. While on the surface the whole thing is kind of artistically funny, it can leave a bitter aftertaste to some as so many incredibly talented artists struggle to make a living with their artwork. It's hard for some of us to digest that a rotting banana would get a $120,000 investment when many great artists struggle to sell anything at all. I have spent a lot of time throughout the years reassessing my views on such “works of art”, if we can call it that. To me, an artist needs to be making art and must have gone through the pains of learning how to make art. While the artist is creating art and getting their hands dirty, some shenanigans are not only tolerable, they are welcomed if they are clever, but to what degree should one who only does shenanigans survive in the art world? Much discussion can be had on the subject. I think we can all agree that if someone who can not make art taped a banana on a gallery wall and sold it for $120,000, it might be funny for a week but it would be ultimately unacceptable and the art world would have to admit that and reject it lest the whole art world and all true artists be utterly shamed. However, if an established, talented artist tapes a banana on the wall, it is acceptable shenanigans, but what does it say about the art world as a whole? The truth is that I don’t know and I am still unsure on how I feel about it.

My “commentary” painting was featured on the news with a French radio interview HERE. The joke was that I put my painting at $120,000. sadly no one bought it!

Years later I dug the painting up after moving and realized that while I still very much liked the banana and the overall message, I no longer liked the vulgarity and the negative vibe that it projected. I have changed a lot since then and I decided to revisit the piece with new eyes. After thinking about it for a while, I came up with this idea, which I believe still conveys the message that regardless of how you view this, it is completely crazy. This revised piece incorporates my new approach of “frames within frames”.

Here it is, Completely Bananas:

Completely Bananas
Acrylic on Stretched Canvas and Canvas Panel
14" x 18"
2019 - 2023

© 2023 Pascal Leo Cormier. All Rights Reserved.

CROSS

This piece is something that I painted sometime around 2013 or 2014 in Montreal. Nothing ever came of it and it travelled with me from then on. I was looking through old paintings recently and this fell on my lap so to speak. I decided to get my hands dirty and revisit it with new eyes. I like how it came out! It's a painting about a suffering man's struggle with his faith and God, always looking up to God and to Hope while struggling to find the cause of his constant pain.

Cross
Acrylic on Canvas Panels
16" x 20"
2023

A Little Painting About Hope

I painted this cute little thing for my wife Kristal for her birthday. I love this woman very much. <3

A Little Painting About Hope
Acrylic on Wood Panel
5" x 7"
2023