The Painter’s Path

Yves Morier was born in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, Canada in October 1945.
Bachelor of Arts at the classical college of Seminaire de Saint-Hyacinthe, where he was sensitized by various forms of arts, he completes in 1969, his law studies at University Laval in Quebec City, where he is attracted by the richness of the Old Quebec architectural patrimony.
Nature’s lover, he is introduced to the art of floral decorations at his father’s florist store, where he works during his summer vacations.
During the 70’s, as young lawyer, he is fascinated by the painter Leo Ayotte’s impressive artwork, who builds with large paint strokes full of colors, magnificent flowers, “natures mortes”, and ancestral houses, this bohemian painter which unfortunately died in Saint-Hyacinthe in 1976.
On September 30th, 1977, following a vernissage of Louis Tremblay’s work, a painter from Baie St-Paul, held at the Martin art gallery, Saint-Hyacinthe, he decides he is going to start painting.
The analysis of Quebec artist works, such as Marc-Aurele Fortin, Leo Ayotte, Rene Richard and Louis Tremblay drove him to paint impressionist style large strokes.
In order to learn the painting art, he participates to the 1980-81 Fall-Winter painting session at the adult education of Yamaska regional school board, directed by Mrs Suzanne Caron.
In September 1981, he registers to the drawing/sketching course given by the Saint-Hyacinthe painter Nelson Dupre.
During his first year of picture art research, he produces fifteen oil paints on masonite panels, where daisies, chrysanthemums, roses and peonies inspire him.
Attracted by the perfection details of painter Yvette Lapierre’s canvasses, already representing numerous St-Hyacinthe historical sites, from which the canvas titled “old court house”, which he bought. In 1982 and 1983, at this cottage in St-Ours-sur-Richelieu, he produced a series of paintings under the theme of “the Saint-Denis-sur-Richelieu patrimonial tour of ancestral houses”.
Judge at the Quebec Court, criminal, penal and civil chamber since 1993, he spends a large part of his leisure time to search the serenity in juxtaposing forms and colors into the development of his art since 1995.
Since September 8th, 1996, he participates in Monteregie regional “painters tour” directed by the Saint-Thomas d’Aquin painter Yves Bernard.
His travel pictures and garden sketches in regions as inspiring as Old Quebec, Charlevoix, Lower Saint-Lawrence, Prince-Edward Island, Nova-Scotia, as well as his tours in Monteregie, east coast of the United States, his trips to Tunisia and Italy inspire him as a poet’s “Muse” .
His large strokes of forms and vivid colors where the impressionism wins over the realism and brings diversity and a patch of sound gives his artworks a very personal style.
To be a judge means lots of listening and even if painting consists more in looking and be filled with moving beauties, it is in listening that one can transpose his view on a panel or a canvas, he says.
This is the way to acquire serenity…
When retiring as a judge of the Quebec court, he will project his art personal development on his oil and acrylic paintings with the richness and the moving color bursting of his unusual realistic canvasses

Yves Morier’s painting expositions and demonstrations

April 1981 — Sacre-Coeur leisure pavilion, Saint-Hyacinthe;
April 1981, March 1982 & 1983 — Court-house Atrium, Saint-Hyacinthe;
August 1981 & 1982 — St-Denis-sur-Richelieu Old Market Fair;
February 1982 & 1983 — Valentine’s Day brunch Sacre-Coeur school, St-Hyacinthe;
September 1996 — Daniel-Seguin gardens, Saint-Hyacinthe;
July 1997 — Dessaulles park, Saint-Hyacinthe;
September 1997 — Organic Apple Orchard, Mont-Saint-Hilaire;
August 1997 to 2005 — The Painters’ Color Path, St-Pie-de-Bagot;
October 1998 — Plein Art Maskoutain, Les Salines park, Saint-Hyacinthe;
August 1999 — “Old St-Pie” gallery, St-Pie-de-Bagot;
September 1999 — Plein Art Maskoutain, Daniel-Seguin gardens, St-Hyacinthe;
March 7 to 31, 2000 — “Serenity” solo exposition, T.-A. St-Germain library;
March 13 to April 5, 2001 — Collective “10 brushes for a promise” T.-A. St-Germain library for the Claudette-Bernier Foundation;
October 17, 2004 — Donation of the “Chrysanthemum” canvas: 01-01-81-002 (oil on 12X16 panel) to Eastern Township/Monteregie Canadian Cancer Society, at their annual evening dance;
October 6, 2005 — Donation of the “Cape May” canvas: 25-09-05-003 (oil on 16X20 canvas) to the Richelieu-Yamaska Canadian Cancer Society;
March 26, 2006 — Vernissage at the “Springtime Room” of the Chasse Art Gallery, Saint-Hyacinthe;
September 28 to 30, 2006 — Duet exposition at the Lawyers and Province Lawyers Congress “Entrez dans la danse” Hotel des Seigneurs, St-Hyacinthe;
March 31 to April 21, 2008 — Duet exposition “Richness and Impulsions”, Doris Chasse and Yves Morier, T.-A. St-Germain library, St-Hyacinthe;

Updated in March 2010