Mark Thibeault

Mark Thibeault's practice extends across painting, music and lutherie. His abstract explorations of landscape combine interests in improvisation, the painted gesture and the notion of home, with a concern for environmental sustainability. As a musician and guitar builder, Thibeault's approach to abstraction is informed by the role of chance in musical improvisation. Likewise, his paintings–bricolages of seemingly unrelated visual information transcribed from multiple viewpoints of a landscape–bring together line, form, colour and texture to create new and unexpected meanings. Thibeault relates this to the way stories are pieced together, or the familiarity of distant melodies and visions. His process becomes a gathering of experiences finding their way to be witnessed as a mark; an intuitive unveiling or revealing of what he describes as the inherent linear compositions woven through our perception of the world and our interactions within it.
 

Thibeault studied for a B.F.A. majoring in visual arts, primarily painting and drawing, at the University of Windsor (1992). He has designed and crafted over 400 world-class musical instruments, examples of which are reproduced in major publications celebrating the art of lutherie, including Terry Burrows' 1001 Guitars To Dream of Playing Before You Die. Thibeault was the inaugural Cassiar Cannery Artist in Residence in 2019 and his work has been presented in numerous group and solo exhibitions throughout Canada, including, The Museum of Northern British Columbia - Cycles (2020); Smithers Art Gallery  - A Line Collected  (2019); Smithers Art Gallery - Home  (2013). He currently lives in Telkwa, British Columbia.