Le Bonhomme Juste Pour Rire

Sy Prevost Gagné is a Canadian multidisciplinary artist based in Mount Royal Quebec. His studies in commercial arts, television, film and creative writing brought him to work with countless prestigious companies over the past 25 years such as Revlon, Molson, the National Film Board, CBC, TVA, RDS, Canal +(France) and Equinox Films. His talent for visual arts and entrepreneurship has permitted him to self publish a series of children’s short story coloring books which have reached nearly 40,000 sales over a three-year period. His decision to put an emphasis on his visual arts came to him when Andy Nulman (President of the Just for Laughs festival) told him that the sculpture that he had created for him back in the late 80’s now sits in his home next to an original Andy Warhol. Since then, Sy was hired to reproduce the trophy of the Gala Artis for TVA on the televised red carpet portion of the awards show, thus since 2012. Amongst his monumental work you'll find a 9-foot metal sculpture called ‘’Madeleine and Sally’’ that stands proudly on the front lawn of a small Museum in St-Hypolite Quebec. The sculpture is in reference to the 1960’s hit TV series called ‘’The Flying Nun’’ starring Sally Fields and Madeleine Sherwood and was commissioned by Madeleine’s best friend and voting Academy Awards member Pauline Bernier Fitch. Pauline has commissioned Sy for several projects since then including the production of a short documentary about Madeleine Sherwood's career that was shown at NYC’s prestigious ‘’Actor’s Studio’’. 2020 marks his official ‘’debut’’ of a series of un-commissioned works and a new book. The mixture of POP ART paintings and sculptures are a retrospective of priceless and unforgettable moments throughout his youth. Each piece is accompanied by a TRUE short story and/or anecdote to be published along with the paintings in the book. As numerous as they are, Sy started with a painting about his first conversation with Leonard Cohen back in 1984. He immediately followed with the time he met David Bowie walking down the streets of Montreal with world renown dancer Louise Lecavalier from LALALA Human Steps. Up next you might ask? You can expect short stories about Harvey Keitel, Celine Dion, Charlton Heston’s sambuca, Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob’s matching t-shirts and Sy’s Canadian Mafia stories, to only name a few. Also in the works for 2020! Sy’s love for commercial arts started in his youth as he was mesmerized before colorful graphics on his cereal boxes! It is no wonder that he went on to study commercial arts and work as a ‘’hand letterer’’ during his teens in the early 80’s. It’s in homage to his roots that Sy has created a series of ‘’BRANDED’’ POP ART pieces that integrates all of his passions for food, wine, music, cartoons, cinema, cars, scooters and travels!