Marja-Leena Rathje

Still from ‘Sogna Sakha 2005’ © 2006 Jean Detheux

Back in July, I wrote about Belgian-Canadian artist Jean Detheux, who creates wondrous works entirely digitally after giving up painting for health reasons. If you missed it, please go read it first and then come back here.

Through the magic of the internet, Jean Detheux chanced upon my article and sent me a nice email thanking me for my words. He also wrote that his work has evolved since that last interview of several years ago and that his new material (animation and interview) can be seen here. I enjoyed looking at his new animations set to music.

From the interview, I learned that Jean has produced some films for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). This piqued my interest even more since I’ve written here about the NFB and Norman McLaren a couple of times. Jean gives a nod to McLaren by calling his DVD “Volatile materials”**, containing his two NFB films, as an “abstract animation after McLaren.” It is amazing to compare McLaren’s hand drawn films from the 1940’s to today’s digital animations, to see the march of technology.

Have a look at the NFB site – there’s a a short biography, and some stills from Liaisons and Rupture. I think these are beautiful glimpses of what must be gorgeous films.

I asked Jean if he’s still teaching as well. He wrote: “I was just asked to conduct a master-class at the NFB theatre (in Montréal) in celebration of the “International Animation Day” on the 28th of October. This will be made of three parts: a lecture/master-class, followed by the projection, in HD, of my 2 NFB films, “Laisons” and “Rupture,” followed by yet another “happening,” during which I hope to be able to improvise images/animation while 2 great musicians, Joane Hétu and Diane Labrosse will improvise their music.”

**Jean adds: ‘the “Volatile Materials” DVD contains also works by Chris Hinton and a few others, so it is not “mine” only even if it holds my 2 NFB films’.