Les Cap-Horniers 

Curator: Here we have Charles Lapicque's "Les Cap-Horniers," an acrylic painting on canvas that seems to vibrate with a frenetic energy. What are your initial impressions? Editor: Well, immediately the colors strike me. Those purples and greens clashing in the waves – there’s something turbulent and almost violent about it. I see the boats, or rather, shapes suggestive of boats, tossed around in this swirling vortex. It really captures a sense of danger and chaos. Curator: Exactly! And if we think about the materials, the use of acrylics allows for this build-up of layers, these distinct blocks of color. You can almost feel the artist wrestling with the medium to convey that instability. I am particularly interested by the flatness of some areas juxtaposed with other portions where acrylic has been clearly applied thickly. Editor: Those choppy, stylized waves definitely speak to the idea of the "Cap-Horniers", the Cape Horners – sailors who braved the treacherous waters around Cape Horn. Ships of this period often contain flags used as signals – codes among sailors. Given the period’s romanticism of exotic locations, one has to ask, where were these boats meant to sail? Curator: I wonder, too, about the labour required. What would life have been like for these sailors at sea for months at a time, with no way of communicating home or stocking on necessary materials and foods? And who produced the acrylic paints Lapicque has used so vibrantly to picture these sea monsters and sailing vessels? Editor: There’s certainly an iconic quality. Even today, images of sailing ships conjure ideas of adventure, but also risk and the struggle against the elements. The rough application seems to reinforce that primal battle, reducing the ships to basic symbolic shapes, almost like totems. Curator: The artist plays between abstraction and representation here in ways that speak to its handmade and somewhat rough quality. I wonder if there's something being pictured of both nature and its exploitation. We are seeing images of the Cape Horners at the same historical moment when that location would be undergoing increasing environmental and geopolitical scrutiny. Editor: It really is a painting that speaks volumes about man's ambition against the indomitable will of nature. I now leave the scene more appreciative of the cultural weight imagery holds. Curator: Indeed! By considering the physicality of Lapicque's "Les Cap-Horniers", the way this work speaks to industry and historical record, and considering how different modes of production intersect.