Concordia fine arts graduates show the darkness of being human in a collective art show

MALAISE, an art show put on by six Concordia fine arts graduates, explores the raw and uneasy aspects of being human.

Last Thursday, artists Tessa Cameron, Katarzyna Chmielarz, Gabriela Gard Galiana, Ariana Sauder, Natalie Soble, and Liza Sokolovskaya—who go by the collective name The Group of Six in reference to the famed Canadian artists Group of Seven—welcomed a throng of admirers to Galerie 203 in Old Montreal, where the show will be mounted until Dec. 4.

“Everyone kind of pitched ideas of what they wanted to go for and a lot of it ended up being just morbid, uneasy themes,” said Gard Galiana of how they went about choosing their dark theme. “We chose the name ‘MALAISE’ to work around a few months ago, and we decided to do all our work according to that.”

The artists, who have all worked together in the past, kept close contact with each other throughout the process of creating the art for the show, explained Galiana, so as to make sure the feeling of malaise was cohesive throughout all the pieces. However, they each had a very unique way of interpreting it.

The collective effect of all these tableaus hung side-by-side is certainly disquieting.

Gard Galiana’s striking oil paintings represent individuals’ inner struggle through portraits that play with the concept of bondage; they are gagged, restrained, held back.

“My work was about fighting against yourself, hiding from your own secrets, your own insecurities, the fight within yourself,” said Gard Galiana. “People are tied up but it’s more to represent this uneasiness than anything sexual.”

Sauder’s portraits, painted in oil on canvas, have a blurry aesthetic that make the series look like snapshots of people caught in the rain, or seen through a foggy window. The feeling is highly eerie, and almost spectra. The same eeriness is felt in Sokolovskaya’s oil paintings, of out-of-focus close-ups of inanimate objects as one enters a home—“Buzzer #35” makes an everyday button seem ominous, and a lone lit lamp in a dark room in “Almost home” gives the sense that something sinister is lurking just behind the next wall.

Soble’s series of “Rorschach Girls”, painted in watercolour and ink on paper, immediately evokes an asylum or mental sanitarium. The twin sets of girls portrayed in mirror images seem to reference a chilling freak show-type atmosphere.

Death is present in animal form in Cameron’s work, with one painting of a taxidermied goat and another of a fur wig suspended ghost-like in mid air.

Chielarz also used ink to evoke a Japanese-style sketch series of “Les filles de la ville” shows figures hiding their faces while their naked bodies are made up of rows of crowded houses.

It took about four months to put everything together, and the girls did it all themselves from, obviously, creating the work, to scouting locations, to advertising and funding the show.

“We just started out, so the main goal for us is exposure,” said Gard Galiana. “Our location in the Old Port is great for us, you get a lot of tourists, a lot of people who are interested in buying art touring the galleries here.”

This is the second time the six of them have worked together, and they plan to do so again in the near future.

The pieces showcased are all on sale at Gallery 203, and range from $80 to $1300.

Gallery 203 is located at 227 Notre-Dame St. W. MALAISE is running until Dec. 4. For more information on the exhibition, visit galerie203.com.

Beyond The Frame explores the relationship between art, space and its audience

It starts as an artist’s idea; then, through a complex creative process, the idea finally rests upon a canvas, there for anyone to see and interpret. But what if the fourth wall was shattered, bringing reality and art together?

The exhibit, Beyond The Frame, on display at the VAV gallery until Nov. 7, explores this bi-dimensionality with the work of three Concordia artists. Jonathan Theroux, Rihab Essayh, and Milo Flores have come together to create a peek into the alternate reality from the artists’ imagination. Using drawing and other mediums, they transformed the art gallery into an experimental installation studying the relationship between art and its viewers. It goes into the actual meaning and prominence of this said relationship and what the public can bring to the artwork.

A forest of black and white columns, weirdly evocating Beetlejuice’s stockings, welcomes you in the gallery space. Complemented by drawings, objects encouraging participation of the public and a surrealist video, the exhibit makes you wonder what is actually going on in this small, enclosed world.

According to the exhibit’s description, “the artist-curators all take up notions surrounding self, however within the expanded field of the exhibition, the works happen as a result of a viewer’s own experience.”

The exhibition really imposes a strong impression of being in an alternate reality. It is safe to assume that everyone passing by the gallery this week will have a very different interpretation of the exhibit. What Beyond The Frame represents is the way art can actually be present outside the traditional canvas and how we, as the public, actually are intermingled with it.

Beyond The Frame is presented at the VAV gallery situated at 1395 René-Lévesque Boul. until Nov. 7. For more information, visit vavgallery.concordia.ca.

An art gallery gets transformed into a social club for Montreal’s artistic enthusiasts

Since before the time of the Quiet Revolution, Quebecers have lived in the constant flux between Francophone and Anglophone culture. In the past, these discussions took place among artist collectives in cafes, bars and other public places. Today, the desire to come together to discuss the questions of identity and modernity is rising to the forefront of the population.
From Sept. 5 to Oct. 11, The Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery has been transformed into a social club. So much more than a static exhibition, Just Watch Me is an immersive experience that emulates – in appearance and purpose – artist collectives such as Mousse Spacthèque, one of the first night clubs of the Quiet Revolution era.

From retro decoration and vintage tables to lounge chairs and disco lighting, the gallery has become a place of discussion and exploration for questions of identity and Quebec culture in the aftermath of the Quiet Revolution. The month-long event was initiated by Romeo Gongora, (who is himself an artist) and was made a reality through his partnership with other organizations such as University of the Streets, CUTV and Les Éditions de la Tournure along with many individuals. Anne-Myriam Abdelhak of CUTV described the T.V. station’s involvement: “Romeo contacted CUTV because of its nature of being a community organization dedicated to video production and in giving voices to various communities, but also because of its history of producing socially and politically engaged content.” CUTV’s role in the Just Watch Me exhibit is organizing weekly activities such as a camera workshop and filming The Pulse (CUTV’s News show) to name a few.

On their website, the organizers state that for Gongora, “revisiting the social and political issues which arose during this period is crucial in order to pursue a continuous quiet revolution”. Michèle Thériault, Director of the gallery, described the project as “an entry point.” It is meant to emulate the environments created by artists in the 60’s. She described the atmosphere of those clubs as being utopic. They were places filled with people hoping for change.
The gallery, which serves as a café by day and a discotheque by night, has been turned into a place of discussion and discovery. With events happening within the space for the entire month, including Disco every Friday night, artist talks, film screenings, residency programs and more, the usefulness of this creative space becomes clear. The need still exists for a public space of free speech and dialogue for the exploration of a cultural identity; a place free of the ‘just watch me’ attitude.
The title of the event, Just Watch Me, is taken from the renowned and controversial quote made by Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau during the October Crisis in 1970. Shortly following this interview, the War Measures Act was put in place for the first time during a period of national peace. The phrase has since been seen as a dismissal of not only the civil rights due to every Canadian, but also of the concerns and convictions of the people of Quebec. Clearly, Trudeau’s actions were an inspiration to the artists, as seen not only in the title of the event but in the content as well. Upon entering the gallery visitors come face to face with the video recording of Trudeau making the famous comments.

After the Maple Spring student protests, still fresh in the minds of many, as well as the heated debates that occurred over the Charter of Values, discussion surrounding the new identity of Quebec society have yet to reach any conclusion. Just Watch Me will be held until Oct. 11 at the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery. For more information, visit the gallery’s website: http://ellengallery.concordia.ca/en/expositions_justwatchme.php