Art Matters 2023
"There is a Space For Me and You" @ PFOAC
An Art Matters exhibition as part of Concordia University's undergraduate visual arts festival
Facilitator
Aimée Lebeau
Artists
Christopher Larochelle: 1008 | @chrizlaroshell
Fanny Lord-Bourcier: La and Ko | @cartou.che
Justine Bellefeuille: Amorphe | @justinebellefeuille
Edson Niebla Rogil: Martyrdom | @edsonniebla | edsonieblarogil.cargo.site
Mauve Brochu: Déshabiller / Undressing
Doune Patricia Thèbe: Sipping on my youth | @patriciadounethebe
Ranime El Morry: Just a Lookalike | @ranimetarek
Yasmeen Dajani: We take our morning coffee with sugar | @opheliastardust
Justine Béliveau: Giving Back | @j__blanche__m
Dan Yang: La Brume | @damndandamnn | www.damndandamnn.com
here’s a Space for Me and You regroups the work of ten artists from a variety of disciplines, who explore space through photography, textiles, mark-making, video, ceramics, and sculptural works. These artists consider space through their thoughtful artworks and relate it to their physical surroundings, mental state, memory, community, and storytelling.
In a post/ongoing pandemic world, interactions with our surroundings, each other, and ourselves have adopted new meanings. This pushes us to reflect on our relations to a milieu, either in an introspective manner or socially, based on current and past experiences. Our interactions with space are represented within our experiences as individuals; thus, our relations to these spaces shape our perceptions of the world and inform our artistic practices. With this in mind, these artists have created sensible artworks that delve into larger societal discourses related to: the policing of identities and bodies, memories, current/past experiences, and anxieties about the future. Whether this is done through specific connotations imposed on to objects or feelings evoked in sculptural installations, each artist sheds light on how their relationship with certain spaces has impacted them.
While these dealings with space happen publicly or privately, the aftermath of memories and questions unanswered, drove these artists to create. Their choice of materials, which range from friable textures to imposing rigid structures, demonstrate the distinct relationship between the tangibility of the artworks and their content, and how they are in dialogue with each other. Some of the artists explored a more contemplative approach to the themes, in which case the ephemerality of the mediums reflect their choices to the viewers; others chose to ground their works in physicality, which is reflected in the agency of their subject matter. Moreover, there is a strong sense of symbolism being evoked in the various works, which serve as an entrance point for the viewers to elicit an emotional response.
As you peregrinate through this exhibition, we invite you to reflect on your own relation to space, based on the thematics approached in each artwork. Allow yourself to be transported into the worlds of our artists, and to question your role as an audience in their narratives.