Gilles Goyette
We lost Gilles to cancer on February 25. How can I introduce you to someone whose creative output was so broad? In his 59 years, Gilles never allowed himself to be limited by convention, habit, or medium. Ever independent, exploring whatever interested him, he never followed trends or sought support but created from “inner necessity” (Kandinsky’s phrase). The result is a striking and singular oeuvre in painting, photography, writing, and sound, including his most ambitious work, The Random Generated Text Project. Volume 1, Super Vox, will be launched on October 3 at Gilles' Celebration of Life, and a chapbook, “We gazed lustily” from Volume 3, Kallikantzaros, is now available.
His “Sound Paintings” are the aural equivalent of visual art – strange, haunting improvisations captured in recordings, many created for contemporary dance (one was nominated for Toronto’s Dora Mavor Moore Award).
Lost in Light, his astonishing 15,000-photo movie, was chosen by NOW Magazine as a “Must See” during Toronto's Contact photography festival. Both of these are both in production by House of ShAkE.
And his massive Random Generated Text Project is a labour of pure love and deep philosophical wonder, which I believe is destined to be one of the most important artistic responses to our time. It requires no expertise or special knowledge, only an openness to a new experience of reading – and to a new experience of meaning itself. It’s like discovering you can breathe under water.
The first volume, Super Vox, will be launched on October 3, at Gilles' Celebration of Life.
And “We gazed lustily,” a chapbook with selections from the third volume, Kallikantzaros, is now available in a numbered first run of 25 copies.
