En Masse means “as a whole”, or “all together”. It is a Montreal based, multi-artist collaborative drawing project. It draws life from the many creative individuals who take part in the project to create large-scale, highly spontaneous drawings in black and white.
HEC Montréal, is arguably Canada’s leading business school with over a hundred years of history and three international accreditation’s. In September 2012 on the third-floor lobby of the Decelles building of the school, En Masse was hired to paint a permanent installation. Filling a wide and mildly concave wall, as well as two flanking sets of four 4×8 panels opposite (for a total of almost 70 square metres), the work is pretty much the most technically demanding En Masse has created to date.
Its aim is to engage the school’s coming generation of business professionals with expressions of four key themes — innovation, light, motion and openness — with a literal illustration of the value of creative, respectful and quick-thinking collaboration towards a greater good.
Starting with the theme of light, the En Masse team of Jason Botkin, Rupert Bottenberg, Fred Caron, Tyler Rauman, Carlos Santos, Krista Bursey, Jason Wasserman, Peter Ferguson, Dan Buller and Jeremy Shantz worked outwards, symmetrically, from a central blank white circle on the main wall, through ever-darkening shades of grey into black. The intricate and carefully realized patchwork of intriguing images the emerged was thus infused with a powerful feeling of illumination. The smaller panel series flanking the main wall were likewise achieved with an effective sense of light into dark.
