To conclude its 2012 programming, Galerie Simon Blais will present an exhibition of works by a number of young Canadian artists whose technique intensifies the painterliness of their evocation of architectural structures and built spaces. Formed through planes and fragments, these works place clearly delineated areas of brightness next to patches of abstraction, which has the effect of rendering the spaces represented both ambiguous and unplaceable. What results are enigmatic places that are empty and silent for some, congested and raucous for others but, in every case, created from the shattering of architectural forms. The works included in this exhibition give the illusion of perspectival space merging with painting surface. There are sufficient similarities among them for us to be tempted to see a possible direction being taken by young Canadian painters. It is clear that the practices of several other Canadian artists, like Martin Golland or Étienne Zack, fall within an analogous aesthetic; such a relationship further strengthens the impression of a trend, an approach that is also evident on the international scene in the work of Germany’s Matthias Weischer. It will be particularly interesting to see whether the aesthetic concerns common to these young Canadian painters will, over the long term, become part of the history of our country’s art. The exhibition’s curators, Paul Bradley and Catherine Plaisance, wager that this trend in the visual arts will have a far from passing influence.
Architectonics of Spacebrings together works by Julie Beugin (a Calgary native now living and working in Berlin), Leigh Bridges (originally from Edmonton, she lives and works in Winnipeg), DaveandJenn (natives of, respectively, Edmonton and Velbert, currently living and working in Calgary), Alexis Lavoie (born in Montréal, where he continues to live and work), Jessica Peters (a Saint-Jérôme native now living and working in Brownsburg-Chatham), and Ehryn Torrell (originally from Newmarket, currently living and working in London, England).
