Exhibition
Café de la Grave, Îles-de-la-Madeleine · 3 to 23 August 2026
Exhibition closed
22 canvases for a single island. The one you can see from everywhere in the Îles and reach only by boat — the one that, in Fred's words, serves as the entrance to the archipelago.
“The horizon of most viewpoints in the Îles.”
The opening was held on Monday 3 August, as a five-to-seven, at Café de la Grave. Fred is invited there every second year, and he makes no secret of it: this is the date that counts. The room had the air of a family gathering — his own were there, and the faithful with them.
Entry Island is hard to reach and yet visible from almost anywhere. That paradox holds the exhibition together: you look at it every day without going. It closes the horizon at Havre-Aubert, at Cap-aux-Meules, at La Grave; you end up not seeing it, from having it always in front of you.
Fred made it the subject of a whole year. 22 canvases, March to August, the same waterline taken up season after season — painted the way you return to a sentence you cannot finish. This is not a series of landscapes: it is one gaze held for twelve months.
“Serves as the entrance to the archipelago.”
Beyond the classic landscapes that set the English-speaking island apart, the exhibition works through the angles of its silhouette — and a few finds no one saw coming.
The hill that gives the island its silhouette, recognisable from twenty kilometres away. It returns from canvas to canvas like a signature written in landform. Below it the cliff turns deep blue: Fred is not painting a postcard, he is painting a mass.
Seabirds packed into the red cliff, in ranks of blue and white. A farmyard on the rock face, painted as a group portrait — each has its own stance, none is looking away.
At the heart of the traditional legend that islanders living with double insularity take pride in. Fred brings him back to the beach, alone, at a gallop, the island in silhouette behind him. The title says “is back”: everyone here knows what he means.
Four square canvases, one round frame: the island seen from the crossing. What the approaching traveller sees, and nothing else — the porthole cuts the landscape for you and refuses the rest.
Popeye holds up the poster, Paw Patrol stands guard, a flying saucer abducts the cows and Hergé drops in at Café de la Grave. The pop register taken at its word — from a painter who spent ten years on life drawing, these canvases are not a break, they are a statement.
And then the island simply looked at: a band of sky, a band of water, the silhouette between them. Eight 38 × 76 cm panoramas on wood, the same framing taken up from April to August. This is where the practice shows best — same composition, other light, other music.
Fred paid tribute to the four seasons and their distinct palettes — an homage to the facets of a mysterious island, and to inhabitants every bit as mysterious.
It is an invitation to linger with this giant of the Madelinot horizon, and to go back at different times of year. The same waterline, taken up from April to August: what changes is the light — and with it, everything else.
Seven takes on the shape of the horizon, in the order they were painted. Beneath each, its dominant colour — extracted from the canvas, never chosen.
The hang does not stop at 2026. Three small framed masonites, far older, went up alongside the rest.
The oldest is from July 2005: the island in silhouette on a turquoise sea, under a white sky. Then a blazing orange in 2019, and two bands — gold and deep blue — in March 2020. At a glance they say what no text says as fast: the motif held Fred long before he made an exhibition of it.
To round out the mood, Laure Lapierre, the artist's partner, and Jean Bergeron offered four musical pieces inspired by the sea — one on voice, the other at the piano. Mario Gerbaldo was there too.
“There is an added fullness to contemplation when you are in love.”
Photographs: Dominic Rheault
“The most important moment.”
Every work hung at Café de la Grave, in the order they were hung. Red dots mark the ones that found a buyer — they stay visible, as they did on the wall.
Entry Island fascinates far beyond the Îles, and has inspired creators of every kind: the children's book “Une île comme maison”, by Benoît Davidson with illustrator Alexandra Dion-Fortin, published in April 2026; Peter May's novel “Entry Island”, published in 2014 and still in bookshops.
In March 2026, Fred showed a pop-art exhibition on the Mi-Carême at Espace Solo. With this collection he reaffirms an art rooted in the land and traditions of the Îles.
