Jean-Gabriel Lambert is a French-Canadian artist of many trades, though he has been primarily focused on the visual arts for decades now. Born in Montreal, Jean-Gabriel was originally on the path to becoming a pharmacist, even obtaining his Bachelor’s degree in the process. However, the call of the arts was too loud, and soon theatre school had successfully enticed him into the early stages of his artistic career.
Jean-Gabriel’s creativity was apparent as he forayed into directing and acting in films and
eventually into writing and singing, too. The greatest artistic outlet, however, was that of painting. Driven by an irrepressible desire to create, it was in the visual arts that Jean-Gabriel found his true passion. He abandoned the four walls of the university in this new shift in career, familiarizing himself with oil paints before transitioning to using acrylic as his preferred medium. Drawing and painting opened up the possibility for an unimpeded daily practice of spontaneous and improvised movement: it is this great freedom that Jean-Gabriel has long sought.
In his over thirty-year long painting career, Jean-Gabriel’s mastery of the craft is, paradoxically, tied to his allowance to let ideas emerge from the paint onto the canvas in dialogue with his brushstrokes. Often, figures insinuate themselves into the paintings, taking shape through the abstract gestural flux. Figurative images rise to the surface: here we see a mouth and there, a body…leaving the work open and in movement. A canvas never has a single meaning when seen through the eyes of an other -- it lives and it grows. He makes his presence on the canvas known with his broad strokes of the palette knife in application of the acrylics, but the ground remains abstracted for the viewer to interpret.
Jean-Gabriel Lambert’s artistic expression continues to emerge and assert itself as he moves forward in life. The dialogue with the public provoked by his paintings nurtures him and gives him the desire to open it ever further through his art. He does not seek to transpose the images in his mind onto the viewer, but rather have a collaborative process for all co-conspirators to contribute their own interpretation of each of Jean-Gabriel’s paintings.
Holding the secret to the personal story that he has been telling from the very start, Jean-Gabriel gives us the clues through his canvases’ titles: “El espejo”, “La fiesta”, “Reforma”, “La pura vida”, “Madeleine”, and “Volver” to name a few. The beauty of Jean-Gabriel Lambert's rests in the multitude of layers of reading existing in his paintings. There is the artist’s story and all the stories of each spectator. However, no matter if the stories differ there is always an emotion as powerful that Jean-Gabriel’s artwork infuses to its public.
The artistic journey that he embarked upon twenty-five years ago has led him around the world in a quest for inspiration. For the past few years, his favourite destination has been Mexico, Puerto Vallarta in particular, where he is inspired by the light and colours of its spectacular natural environment that he has set up a second studio in the city.
Jean-Gabriel Lambert is represented throughout Canada and Mexico, with multiple permanent exhibitions in both countries.
