Hergé Explore NB

 12 x 12", acrylic on cradle aluminum panel
painting #302, 2025, black floater frame

Growing up, I read all of the graphic novels of the Adventures of Tintin. I've always had a kind of adventurous spirit and a desire to travel. I suspect that globe trotting with Tintin through those pages awoke something inside me during those formative years.  

The genesis for this painting was planted back in 2016. My wife, Suzanne, and I visited the Belgian Comic Strip Center in Brussels. Amidst the displays of artefacts, one specific object grabbed my attention: a replica of the Crabe Extra tin from Hergé’s classic Tintin adventure, The Crab with the Golden Claws (Le crabe aux pinces d'or).

Crabe Extra from The Adventures of Tintin, The Crab with the Golden Claws

Belgium Comic Strip Center, Brussels - 2016

Fast forward to two Christmases ago. My son, Jean-Luc, surprised me with a figurine of Hergé himself. The artistic wheels soon began to turn. I started wondering: What if Hergé was to cross the Atlantic again? What if I plunged Tintin's creator directly into a brand-new adventure right here in New Brunswick? To ground this Franco-Belgian comic icon in my home province so he could conceive his next book. 

When I was a teenager in the late 1970s, I spent my summers working at the United Maritime Fishermen (U-M-F) fish processing plant in Cap-Lumière, NB. Instead of painting Hergé’s fictional crab tin, I went searching online for some memorabilia from my youth. I found an image of the exact vintage U-M-F "Fresh Lobster Meat" can that was used to pack and freeze lobster during the time I was there. After downloading the pic, I cropped the Lobster image with Photoshop, found the same fonts for the lettering and proceeded to create my own label. Bought a $1 can of water chestnut which corresponded to the exact size I needed and voila!

 

Top- original UMF Fresh Lobster Meat Can, circa pre 1980

Bottom- facsimile can that I created 

Using that label as my anchor, I meticulously hand-painted the background using a liner brush, tracing the lobster anatomy in a precise, greyscale pattern. The background is an homage to two masters. While the clean, unvarying lines mimic legendary ligne claire (clear line) comic style, the decision to invert the image as a negative—painting them light against a dark field in a rhythmic, repeating grid—is a direct nod to Andy Warhol's pop-art silkscreen prints. It is a full-circle moment: Warhol famously met and painted a portrait of Hergé in the late 1970s, citing the comic artist as a massive influence.

The "Hergé à Québec" exhibition, which ran 

from June 21 to October 22, 2017

Musée de la Civilisation, Québec City

Beside the U-M-F tin stands Hergé himself, sketchpad in hand, seemingly plotting his next mystery while standing atop the 2019 New Brunswick Tourist Guide Booklet featuring the iconic Miscou Lighthouse. This booklet represents a piece of local history in its own right—it was the very last physical guide the province ever printed before going entirely digital.

During the depth of the pandemic, when our province was part of the Atlantic bubble, we took the opportunity to explore our province and vacationed twice in the Acadian Peninsula. Among the attractions is the Véloroute - a 300 km cycling path. I had the opportunity to cycle across the picturesque Miscou Island. 

This is the narrative that I came up with to create this painting. But, after the painting was completed, a bizarre, intriguing twist occurred that this work could easily be reinterpreted with much darker undertones. 

In November 2025, Radio-Canada's investigative program Enquête revealed that between 10% to 30% of the lobster catch in Atlantic Canada is diverted to the illegal black market worth up to $681 million annually. The exposé utilized undercover operations to document how catches bypass mandatory weighing and regulations before being laundered through commercial supply chains and distributed internationally by organized crime.  

During one of the opening scenes of this investigative report is an aerial view of the Miscou Lighthouse (at 2min:26 sec). Click HERE to watch the episode. 

When I introduce a marble in a painting, it often reveals that I am playing a mind game with the viewer. OK, now let's do a reinterpretation of this imagery using this new information-  Hergé plays the role of a Radio-Canada reporter doing the investigation on the illegal lobster catch, using a black background to represent lobsters being sold on the black market with each lobster worth 100 million dollars... 

This painting will part of my two-person show with Jon Wilkinson entitled- 

''Still Lives  Silent Places'' 

held at the Fog Forest Gallery 

from October 16 - November 6, 2026.
Opening reception - Oct. 23, 2026 - from 4:30 to 6pm

Gallery hours - Thursdays and Fridays from 10 am to 5 pm or by appointment. 

To acquire this painting, please contact the gallery. 
Fog Forest Gallery
14 Bridge Street
Sackville, NB, Canada
(506) 536-9000
website- https://www.fogforestgallery.ca/