RICHARD TETRAULT-BIOGRAPHY
Richard Tetrault is a Vancouver-based painter, printmaker, and muralist whose work explores the figure and the urban landscape. He studied in both Vancouver and New York, and has exhibited extensively in many solo and group exhibitions in North America and abroad. Tetrault is represented in numerous collections, both public and private.
Tetrault’s work reflects the changing facets of the city, maintaining a constant dialogue between the artist and his community, “The immediate environment is the starting point for my paintings and prints, providing me with the settings and encounters critical to my interests. Resolving tensions between realism and abstraction gives the underlying structure for my form, and I strive for an image that is both tangible and elusive.”
Tetrault has received several grants for his exhibits and projects, including a five-month studio residency in Germany, a Canada Council Grant for an exhibition in Asia, as well as for mural collaborations and touring exhibits in Mexico, Africa and across Canada.
His murals are visible throughout Vancouver, in community centres, housing developments, banks and schools. Working with groups ranging from Arts in Action, a Vancouver-based public art group, to the post-butoh Kokoro Dance, Tetrault has explored various dimensions of collaborations.
In 1998, Tetrault was artist-coordinator for the community-based “Walls of Change”, a six-month project designed to give the community of the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver an opportunity to express both its uniqueness and concerns. Other mural locations include The Jim Green Residence, Carnegie Centre, The Four Corners Bank, Ray Cam, Strathcona and Britannia Community Centres, The Four Sister’s Co-operative and Keefer Street Overpass.
Tetrault has conducted numerous workshops in mural painting with youth,
resulting in a broad range of murals for public schools and festivals.
Recent projects involve Kids Guernica, an international, collaborative
children’s mural on the theme of peace which is traveling around the world,
to a Canada-wide arts initiative with Artstarts In the Schools called Learning
through the Arts.
