Rogé Girard
- Anna Lilli Garai
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
Rogé Girard is a Montreal-based painter who began his career as an illustrator before turning to abstract painting. He works standing, often with music in the studio, and approaches the canvas through repeated brushwork and color, without starting from a fixed image.
In our interview, he talks about the move from illustration to painting, about working with the body as much as with the eye, and about how music guides his days in the studio.
Q: How did moving from illustration to abstraction change the way you think about painting?
A: The shift to abstraction freed me from my rational mind, which tends to create a “beautiful” image. I stopped thinking in terms of constructing an image and began focusing on an experience to be lived. Painting became a space for research, discovery, and joy, rather than a result to be achieved.
Q: What first led you toward working in a more instinctive, gesture-driven way?
A: It was a way for me to escape the control that I find too present in our lives. Instinct is harder to access than reason, but certainly more intimate. When we choose to let ourselves be guided by our gestures, we are closer to our senses, we learn to trust ourselves, and that’s when we truly dive inward. A truth then emerges from our work.
Q: When you paint, how do you let movement and the body guide the work?
A: I paint standing up, always while listening to music. For me, painting is a bit like a dance. As soon as I begin the first movement, my body lets itself be carried by something greater. It establishes its own rhythm, and I become the observer of that moment.
Q: What helps you stay in a state of impulse rather than control while working?
A: Not thinking too much about the next step. I try to listen to what the painting asks for rather than what I want to impose. Working quickly, sometimes with a sense of urgency, helps me stay in that state.
Q: How do you sense the balance between chaos and harmony as a piece develops?
A: It’s a constant tension. Chaos brings energy; harmony allows the work to breathe. I try to sense the moment when one begins to suffocate the other, and to adjust without freezing the process.
Q: What does it mean for you to trust a gesture?
A: It means accepting that a gesture can be right even if it isn’t “beautiful” or controlled. Trusting the gesture is recognizing that it carries an immediate truth, often stronger than any carefully thought-out intention. It holds a sensitivity and an intimacy that deeply move me.
Q: Landscapes are present without being described. How does a place enter the work for you?
A: My connection with nature is essential, both in my personal life and in my work. Everything is connected. Connecting with this beauty is a way of connecting with my deepest values. So when I’m in front of a canvas, I try to visualize myself in a forest, in the mountains, or by the water. This sensuality brings me back to my instinct. I like to let this connection show through my works.
Q: How do you notice the inner response that a landscape awakens in you?
A: A landscape awakens particular energies within me. It can range from serenity, joy, courage, to boldness. By connecting with landscapes, I open up this wide palette of sensations. Painting then becomes a way to translate that response without fixing anything in place.
Q: How does time show itself in a single mark or layer of paint?
A: Each gesture contains a precise moment: a decision, a hesitation, an impulse. The layers accumulate like traces of time—some visible, others buried, but all present.
Q: What are you interested in exploring next in this abstract language?
A: I want to push the relationship between gesture, space, and silence even further, to create new rhythms. I also love color and its impact on our emotions. I want to continue discovering it while exploring unexpected combinations. Ultimately, I am always seeking more joy and freedom through my work.