WALL TO WALL TROUTS

In the summer of 2025, I took over the heart of the village of Saint-Alexis-des-Monts with a series of public artworks that were as playful as they were unexpected. The village was transformed into an open-air museum: huge surrealist photomontages appeared on the exterior walls of several houses along Notre-Dame Street, the main thoroughfare, stretching for about a kilometer. These intriguing images amused, captivated, and inspired fishing enthusiasts! Since Saint-Alexis-des-Monts is known as the capital of speckled trout, the theme of the exhibition was obvious: trout—as never seen before! Some were eight or even twelve feet long. The characters accompanying them? Local residents, who were just as impressive.

The exhibition's aesthetic focused on formal simplicity and visual impact. There was no decor or background: the characters and their fish were precisely cut out, creating the illusion that they were emerging directly from the walls. The black and white unified the series and allowed the works to stand out effectively from a visually busy environment. This choice also evoked the early days of photography, creating an interesting contrast between apparent realism and digital manipulation.

By featuring village residents, I wanted to create a sense of local camaraderie: you see your mother, your cousin, your great-aunt, your neighbor... In a small town where “everyone knows each other,” everyone could recognize themselves.