Gardens | The Gardens | Contemporary Art Walk
In collaboration with the Musée régional de Rimouski, several permanent art works have been installed on the site over the years.
Métissage et mimétisme: Jean Brillant, 2007- (ongoing). Sculptor Jean Brillant lives and works in Montreal but has strong roots to the region where his family were among the area’s most enterprising and successful businessmen. Nine large sculptures of metal and stone are presented in a sequence of gardens. The journey begins near Estevan Lodge and leads to the discovery of each piece, similar in construction but different in form and their embracing of the surrounding space. The virtuosity of the carefully cut pieces of rusted steel is illustrated by the fluid form of each piece.
Elsie: Dominique Blain, 2006. Six elegant telescopes provide a viewing point into the history of Elsie Reford’s life and gardens. At the end of the Long Walk, for instance, you can sneak a peek of Elsie during the construction of the gardens or from the Belvedere where you can see her enjoying a well deserved rest after a day spent gardening.
Passages: Roger Gaudreau, 2003. Passages is a poetic homage to time and the garden, its twelve stones echoing the sculpting of the landscape over the course of the seasons.
Mirages (Delta de Métis): Bill Vazan, 2002. Bill Vazan's work Mirages enjoys a prominent location at the mouth of the Metis River. Five massive boulders have been engraved with botanical hieroglyphs. The work is the centrepiece of the gardens' efforts to conserve and restore the shoreline below the gardens.
Nature morte de Métis: Murray MacDonald, 2000. Located on the path to the International Garden Festival, the artwork begins with an elevated wooden walkway and leads past a nesting box, an artificial tree trunk to a platform surrounding a larch tree where visitors can sit on one of three typical Quebec chairs in aluminium, The work symbolizes the passage from nature to artifice and invites visitors to begin their exploration of living and inert materials characteristic of the International Garden Festival.
Un paysage dans le paysage - le paysage comme tableau vivant: Francine Larivée, 1993-1996. This work of art was created expressly for the site. Built over several years, it is an example of the successful integration of contemporary art in an historic garden. With the gurgling of the stream as a musical accompaniment, you can look out from the last of the bridges onto what is identified as the Moss Garden.
A Classic Base: John McEwen, 1991. Classic Base is a canine silhouette on a classical plinth set against the forest.
Feuille Morte: Jean-Pierre Morin, 1991 Feuille Morte is a corten steel leaf that is appropriately sited beneath mature trees that Elsie Reford planted to form the basis of a small arboretum.
