In a darkened front bedroom is an improbable assemblage of paint brushes, canisters, photographs, various tools and trinkets, a jumble of vintage clothing, stacks of books, empty drinking vessels, prop rubber limbs, and hundreds if not more works of art on paper in various states of composition and decomposition. At the centre of this maelstrom is the artist Tomas Dessureault, 24, who has invited me round to his new garden-level apartment in the Village to document his process in preparation for a forthcoming solo exhibition entitled Peace Please which will open at Galerie POPOP in early September.

Dessureault continues offering me one ostensibly random item from his collection after another for inspection. “Look at these, I found these in the garbage,” Dessureault tells me, handing over two black scrapbooks-full of carefully curated pornographic imagery cut out of late-20^th century print magazines. The photographs are catalogued according to some curious and perverse logical system: hair colour, body position, explicit sexual act.

“Someone put a lot of work into making these,” he says dispassionately. Everything in the room including these binders seems to hold equivalent significance — objects of sociological fascination more than aesthetic appeal, items stripped of sense and consequence.

Dessureault manifests at the door with braced teeth, In Utero-era plum-coloured hair, and an oversize t-shirt clinging to a lanky frame. His energy is positive and spirited and he is sincerely pleased to welcome visitors into his creative space. A majestic, panelled painting hangs in the hallway of the entrance and artworks are strewn in every nook and cranny, a residence into which he recently moved and shares with three roommates. One of them, a photographer called Japhy, busily snaps pictures with a film camera. There is a manic vitality to this household that suggests production over capacity.

Dessureault appears to possess many of the characteristics of a promising young artist: a deep passion for art; an articulate mind; and most of all, a furious ethic that drives him to churn out work constantly. “My art practice is,” he hesitates, “I don’t have a practice. There is no moment when I am not doing art.”

Arriving in Montreal four years ago from Val-d’Or, Dessureault first attended university for medicine, then transferred into philosophy, and is currently midway through a visual arts degree at Concordia. “I think I might drop out,” he confesses. “I have a problem with scholarships. I owe a lot of money.”

Dessureault demonstrates the youthful idealism that typifies recent transplants to Montreal, especially art students. He has the air of a dog with his head hanging out of a pickup truck’s side window, careening down the highway, tongue wagging, taking in the passing landscape with wonder and delight. I feel self-consciously like Christopher Walken’s journalist character in Julian Schnabel’s biopic, Basquiat, wishing not to disturb this exuberance with talk of the wicked world that we all will inevitably encounter. But there is an additionally wise-beyond-his-years quality to Dessureault that tells me I won’t. We are here to talk about art, which is to say, about any and every aspect of life itself.

“The way I make art is very intuitive,” he explains. “I am not thinking at all. I’m trying to not think. To stop thinking.” Dessureault sips from a mug. “I drink ten coffees a day and way more Monster Energy and Red Bull. It’s very intense. You don’t have time to think. The body has to express something. Something is going out of me.”

This intensity is reflected in everything I see — brush strokes and inscriptions and expressionist gestures that scream and dance and imply authentic reckless abandon. “I feel that this work I’m doing, on one canvas, one object, can contain a very intense sentiment and also some kind of tenderness and peace. When the canvas resists them living together in the same area,” he says, “then it’s a fucking good work.”

Dessureault leads me through the apartment and down into a basement, rare for Montreal, with a crawlspace not quite high enough to stand upright. In this underground world is his studio proper, containing even more ephemera, a veritable accumulated mess of activity. In one corner, a dislocated car door rests against the wall. “Oh that? My friend was using it as a purse,” Dessureault deadpans.

I notice coincidentally that Howard Shore’s score for David Cronenberg’s 1996 film Crash is playing from Dessureault’s phone. “I saw it twice,” he recalls, “and I was sleeping. You can imagine with Crash, there’s this shadow, it’s very dreamy. I get my inspiration from things around me. Rap artists are more inspirational for me than any painters: Playboi Cardi; Kendrick; Gezo, the French rapper. But I enjoy listening to Crash. This music got into my head.”

Collision is an apt metaphor for Dessureault’s work — its speed, its unpredictability, its violence and chaos. He picks up a sketchbook from the floor and hands it to me. “I drew this,” he informs me. “I was at my previous apartment on the Plateau, on Laurier. It was like 4am. I could feel the presence of death. This is the evil presence over my shoulder. It was saying to me, ‘At some point, I will take your life.’ I knew this. I knew what I was drawing when I did it,” he divulges, pointing to the loose parchment. “I think I have a demon inside of me.”

We talk at length about what constitutes excellence in art, and Dessureault outlines a sophisticated set of criteria. “The first layer,” he explains, “is the work has to be good in its composition, the placement, the structure, the texture, the relation of depth. Then, it has to be very honest and say something about you. Then, it has to speak to our age. And then, if there is a fourth layer, it’s magic and you don’t understand what’s happening. Then, probably it’s a very powerful work.”

I ask Dessureault about Peace Please, the title of the upcoming exhibition. “John Lennon got killed by a fan,” he says, “by someone that loved him so much. In peace, there is also so much violence. It’s more a prayer. But I’m interested in selling work. Because I’m spending so much money, buying paint, buying books, buying clothes. There are probably things I don’t want to sell because they are enigmatic to me, and I need access to them.”

Nonetheless, Dessureault recognizes that artists, too, need to live in the world, that he is emerging into a hyper capitalist system in which a fickle art market is constructed speculatively, predominantly by what someone is willing to pay for something.

Undisputedly masterful works accrue like strata of sediment on a dried up river bed, while bananas duct taped to walls fetch multiple millions. “This is not even art,” Dessureault says. “I hope for the future that I can just sell enough to work,” he submits. “This apartment is a dream place for me. Before, I was living with mice, with mouse shit everywhere. If I can live like this, I will be happy. Even if I’m in debt, I don’t care. If I owe money to the bank, what does that mean? I just don’t care. I’m trusting it.”

With this, he grabs another sheet of inked paper. “This is everything,” he says, stabbing the surface with an index finger. “The true, very important thing for me is this. The work itself cannot lie to you. If I’m honest with it, people will see when there’s actually something there. Or not. People are smart.”◼︎

Peace Please runs 9-14 September 2025 at Galerie POPOP, Suite 442, 372 Sainte-Catherine Street West.

Cover image: Tomas Dessureault photographed by Miguel Carcacia-Gauthier.