Created in 1989, Titre et des poussières belongs to the late period of Jean Paul Riopelle’s career, when the artist’s practice became increasingly experimental, tactile, and expansive. By this stage, Riopelle had moved well beyond the dense, mosaic-like abstractions of the 1950s and 1960s, embracing a more varied vocabulary of materials, gestures, and references to the natural world.

Executed in mixed media on paper laid down on canvas, the work demonstrates Riopelle’s continued interest in the physical possibilities of art-making. The layered surface allows colour, texture, and mark-making to interact freely, creating a composition that feels both spontaneous and deeply worked. Rather than constructing an image through a defined central motif, Riopelle allows forms and gestures to accumulate across the surface, suggesting fragments of landscape, organic matter, and shifting atmospheric conditions.

During the 1980s, Riopelle increasingly incorporated recognizable elements from nature into his work, particularly birds, animals, and landscapes. Yet these references remained inseparable from his fundamentally abstract approach. In Titre et des poussières, the natural world is evoked through movement, texture, and the physical presence of the materials rather than through literal representation.

The work exemplifies the vitality and freedom of Riopelle’s late practice, demonstrating an artist who, even after decades of experimentation, continued to challenge the boundaries of painting and explore new ways of translating his experience of the natural world into visual form.

This work will be included in Yseult Riopelle's forthcoming catalogue raisonné Volume 7 on the artist's work.

Heffel is proud to be a presenting partner of the inauguration of the new Espace Riopelle – Michael Audain Pavilion at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, opening its doors on October 22.