Making its world premiere today at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre’s North Hall is Beyond Monet: The Immersive Experience, billed as one of “the most immersive art experience yet to be brought to life.”
Created by French-Canadian creative director Mathieu St-Arnaud and his team at Montreal-based Normal Studio, Beyond Monet is a three-part multi-sensory experience combining traditional static educational panels and hanging art with music, sound effects, scenography and projection in a series of oval-shaped rooms designed to perfectly mirror the floor plan of the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris.
Produced in partnership with Paquin Entertainment Group and Toronto-based JL Entertainment, the exhibit covers 50,000 square feet and over one million cubic feet of space within the MTCC and animates to a larger-than-life scale more than 400 paintings—including the Water Lilies series, Impression: Sunrise and Poppies—with over four-trillion content pixels in multi-directional projections, backed by an original score composed by Jean-Sébastien Coté.
“This experience is all about guests embarking on a multi-sensory journey with Monet, through his artworks, in search of light,” says St. Amaud. “Monet captured the essence of the natural world with his strong colours and his short, bold brushstrokes. Constantly searching, with legendary passion and ardour, he was able to depict the ever-changing shifting of light. Our intent with this experience is to not only share Monet’s fascinating vision of the world but for audiences to rediscover his work from new and surprising perspectives.”
If Monet’s exhibit looks similar to one dedicated to another famous Impressionist, that is not a coincidence. Normal Studio is the creative force behind the show “Beyond Van Gogh,” currently making the city-to-city rounds, and which uses a similar palette of animated projections backed by a thundering musical score (not to be confused with another large-scale van Gogh showcase, “Immersive Van Gogh,” from a different team).
