Joffré Roy-Beauregard is an undergraduate student at Concordia University, majoring in Painting and Drawing. He holds a bachelor’s degree in biomedical science and experience in fundamental research. His work explores a variety of different media, including tempera, spray painting and markerwork. Having developed a scientific work ethic in the past, his artworks are distinguished by the attention to detail. Joffré’s work is usually figurative and imply organic elements, another product of having extensively studied science. Some themes of interest involve our urban and natural relation to the environment, and how this relation overall impacts human beings. His practice explores subjects that are not necessarily relatable, despite their rational explanation. By doing so, he ultimately creates a link between rationality and human emotion. By creating detailed artwork and exploring these themes, his artistic endeavour is to offer an opportunity to his viewers to immerse themselves in his works to create a space for reflection.

The Scientific Chagrin is a drawing triptych (11’’ X 15’’) completed throughout the Fall of 2017, using ink on watercolor paper. The first piece is a black ink observation drawing of a common plant, rendered as precisely as possible in the fashion of historic scientific illustrations. The second panel illustrates what could be hiding behind the plant: some small humanoids basking in its flowers and a face hiding in the roots. Great care was taken was taken to produce a consistent reversed drawing of the initial subject. The new characters are depicted into red ink to differentiate them from the original plant. The third panel is where the elements built in the precedent panels engage in a motion. The plant transforms in a creature trying to eat the small men. This work was inspired by the Morse Peckham’s writings on art and disorder, claiming that one of the main functions of art is to disrupt the expectations of its audience. In order to achieve this, the scientific conception and representation of nature is installed in the first drawing, to later be transformed by the inclusion of fantastic elements, reflecting on the replacement of myths by science in our understanding of the world. More, the third drawing pushes the disruption of our common conception of nature by further changing the mood of the series, going from neutral to violent. The disruption is therefore acting on our world conception, based on scientific assumptions. It is addressing the fact that if stories and myths were once used to understand nature, science is now the dominant understanding scheme, turning nature itself into an idealized myth.