Pascale Girardin’s sculpture for the Four Seasons Hotel Montreal evokes the cycles of nature from spring to fall.
Photos by Stephany Hildebrand
The recent arrival of the Four Seasons Hotel Montreal located in the vibrant heart of the Golden Square Mile is transforming the city’s hospitality and entertainment offering. In line with the Four Seasons’ ethos of designing carefully curated spaces, the luxury hospitality brand commissioned acclaimed Montreal artist Pascale Girardin to create an original site-specific sculpture for the newly opened Four Seasons Hotel Montreal.
Suspended in the hotel’s open-air atrium, the sculpture, entitled Contemplation, is a centrepiece, evoking nature in the very heart of the luxury establishment. The work speaks not only to the artistry that is so richly alive in Montreal, but also to the core values of the Four Seasons brand: detailed craftsmanship, enriching human stories, colourful detail, and connection to place.
Made of lightweight aluminum, the all-white installation with gilded accents of 24-karat gold is made up of over ninety floral suspensions ranging from thirty centimeters to one meter in diameter. These garlands cascade through the atrium from the seventeenth to the eighth floor, evoking the cycles of nature—the blossoms of spring flowers, the movement of petals adrift on a summer breeze, the spill of autumnal leaves and the lightness of falling snow.
Contemplation’s organic form creates an elegant counterpoint to the hotel’s linear architecture. At once ephemeral and eternal, this captivating focal point is destined to delight residents and guests of the Four Seasons Hotel Montreal for many years to come.
For more than twenty years, Pascale Girardin has been navigating between the world of ceramics, visual arts and design, instilling her unique vision upon the art objects, tableware and architectural installations that she creates. Inspired by the expression of pure forms, her art discreetly highlights our fundamental relationship to the world in which we live.
Whether suspended, adorning a wall or floating in the water, her works recall the omnipresence and organic structure of nature.
Originally trained as a painter, Pascale Girardin’s interest in both art and science led her to study biology (Université de Montréal), design (Certificate in Digital Technologies, Concordia University) ceramics (Centre de Céramique Bonsecours) and visual arts (BFA Concordia University).
With the goal of enhancing her ability to conduct thoughtful research and to continue nourishing her work Girardin is a recent graduate(MA) of the Université du Québec à Montréal.
Her work as a visual artist and designer has earned her several awards and distinctions, including the Pierre-Pagé Prize and grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec. Pascale Girardin's work complements the architecture of many luxury establishments around the world, including Nobu Broadway, the Four Seasons Montreal, Saks Fifth Avenue, Clement Restaurant in New York, Four Seasons Private Residences in Pudong, the Printemps Paris and the Al Badia Golf Club in Dubai.