Bernard Seguin Poirier learns drawing, sculpture, painting and goldsmithing before developing a great interest in metal enamelling. At the age of seventeen, he went to France where he stayed for three years. During his stay, he makes several trips to discover the city of Limoges. It is in Limoges, the birthplace of enamelling, that he starts learning the craft while he has a firsthand knowledge of goldsmithing thanks to his father.
As a master of goldsmithing, the artist falls immediately in love with the art of fire. As soon as he does the first attempts to learn the craft, he starts to seek constantly new ways of creating light and colors. From the beginning, he is avid to learn and let his imagination soar. As he improves his skills in the craft, Bernard Seguin Poirier contributes enormously to the evolution of this ancient but little-known art.
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His techniques in enamelling are new and innovative. He has designed, inter alia, the biggest kiln in the world for the creation of huge enamel-on-copper paintings. This big kiln is equipped with a metal plate and guillotine doors. The big kiln and five smaller ones are installed in his main workshop and art gallery, the Pierre-Charay residence, a Rivershore historical property along the St-Lawrence River, located 50 KM west of Montreal in Les Cèdres, homeland of his ancestors. Since the acquisition of the property in 1979, he and his wife, Suzanne Chenard, have raised five children in this magnificent domain: Anne-Seguin, Felix-Alain, Yan, Leandre, and Benedicte. Family is of great importance to the artist, and the love of family is strongly present throughout his works.
After several years of creation as a painter and enameller, Bernard Seguin Poirier inaugurates his Enamel Chapel in 2001. It is the first time that the entire walls of a building are embellished with enamel-on-copper paintings. The hall of the chapel is 20 meters long and nine meters wide (65 x 27 inches), and the ceiling and walls are completely covered with enamel panels representing important ceremonies in Quebec. Since the opening of the Chapel jointed to his house, hundreds of artistic events and gourmet dinners have been celebrated in it every year accompanied by Seguin Poirier`s live artistic creation, that is given to the ceremony hosts or one of the participants by drawing lots.
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