"Jacques Troalen incorporates into his creations concerns that are those of a sculptor and a designer." 



Silver against flesh. Forty blocks of precious metal make up a necklace. Ranging from the smallest to largest, pebbles of sterling silver with irregular configurations are strung together like pearls or stones. With this composition, we have the material and its shimmering reflection. Positive and negative spaces punctuate the sequence. The gaze ponders the solidity. It seeks balance. At a small scale, a new prospect for imagery is created. 
Most often geometric, very clean, the forms preferred by Jacques Troalen are displayed with simplicity. Their lines seem to be subordinate to the precious metals which "slide" on the skin. 
Cones, cylinders, cubes ... Jacques Troalen's architectural creations form the antithesis of traditional silverware and jewellery. However, their fabrication draws on the most demanding work of precious metals. For him, everything is done by hand using traditional methods. He does not mould. He doesn't work using the « cire perdu » technique. He doesn't design by press any more than he resorts to mechanical means. He is one of the few in Canada to work this way -same for silverware. All his creations are different. The elements of his rings and necklaces are built one after another to be assembled and adjusted to the closest micron.

He sometimes seeks to express a certain mood or atmosphere. Nothing cold or rigid. The geometric forms don't exclude a more sensitive component. Sometimes, in a more unbridled fantastical way, he is inspired by nature as in his amazing salt and pepper shakers shaped like lotus flowers. Jacques Troalen never forgets that a ring, a necklace appearing on the body must also inhabit it. The sobriety of his creations is recreated through an organic and sensual side that is revealed without ever gushing. Here, the debauchery of ornamentation is prohibited. With Troalen, the expression emphasizes the opulence and splendour of precious metals, their intrinsic qualities with their lush gold and silver, but as a contradiction.

It may be as effective as simply a punched dimple on the pediment of a ring to break continuity of surfaces. This discrete gesture creates a subtle visual. Elegance is produced by the unexpected. In the same way, the spherical surfaces or volumes display their brilliance with fullness and without artifice. This plastic fluid contrasts sometimes with a more rhythmic statement marking the spherical volume. The tight right angles, which on some rings act as a nest for stones lie in stark contrast to the curves.

Jacques Troalen incorporates into his creations concerns that are those of a sculptor and a designer. A predilection for a certain industrial brutalism, borrowing from the worlds of engineering or technology, offers a unique contrast to the nobility of these materials. Both in his jewellery and his gold and silverware, as shown by his coffee maker in silver topped with a handle equally spherical made of ebony or the pommel of a cane in silver and rosewood, Troalen also enjoys playing with the warmth of wood and luster of gold or silver. 
This freedom of expression makes him one of the best designers in this field in Canada.

René Viau art critic 
Montreal, March 2009

Translator: Ms. Shannon Gilead