Born in Rimouski in 1975; lives and works in Montreal.

Gwenaël Bélanger’s work is characterized by an absolute quest for the inherent simplicity of things. Since 1999, the artist has used the most trivial slices of reality as inspiration for his art. For the project Courir les rues, he literally ran through the city’s streets, capturing aspects that normally escape residents’ gazes. In order to seize individual movements of his journey, he used “a 35mm camera equipped with a motor and transformed for the occasion into a mini-kinematograph.” Similar to the work of Ed Ruscha, famous for his themed, sequenced surveys of American landscapes, Bélanger’s work shows us a point of view that is impossible. He reconstitutes his journey by producing collages of still pictures in which the perspectives intersect and distort one another, and vanishing points clash. Beyond their humour, these works reveal the artist’s highly sensitive, attentive gaze, and
they express the various forces that interact within the urban space he explores.

Gwenaël Bélanger has had solo showings of his work at the Centre Optica, Montreal
(2006), at the Galerie Graff, Montreal (2004), at the Centre des artistes Caravansérail, Rimouski (2003) and at the Centre des arts actuels Skol, Montreal (2002). He has also been part of several group exhibitions, including the Manif d’art 3, Quebec City (2005), where he won the People’s Choice Award;Glissements, art et écriture at Galerie de l’UQAM (2005), and La Triennale L’Art qui fait boum! (2003). He is currently completing his master’s degree in visual arts at Université du Québec à Montréal. Gwenaël Bélanger is represented by Galerie Graff, Montreal.