A Young Prince Hounded by Ignoble Beasts Pressed into Man's Servitude or My Dogs in the Road
By Jean Paul Langlois (Vancouver, BC)
170 Shaughnessy
August 2023, Up Here 9
Sponsored by the STC/YES Theatre
Photo: Brandon Michael Gray
This piece was inspired by baroque hunting paintings and the figures are appropriated from paintings by the French painter Alexandre-François Desportes (1661-1743). The landscape is cobbled together from various Looney Tunes backgrounds. The polka-dot rabbit was added last. He's a recurring character in some of Jean Paul's older work. The dogs' names from left to right are Ruler, Angel Z, Rusty, Stinky, Isaac, Royle, and Bumpy.
Jean Paul Langlois
Jean Paul is a Métis artist from Vancouver Island, currently painting in East Vancouver. His work is informed by television and cinema, particularly Westerns, ’70s sci-fi, and Saturday morning cartoons. Using ultra-saturated colours, references to art history and well-worn cinema tropes, he seeks to understand the alienation to his own cultural backgrounds, both Indigenous and settler. His work is an examination of his own life through the reinterpretation of family stories using characters and motifs from the pop culture he was weaned on.