Noah Rubel is a Vermont-raised artist attending Concordia University.
His practice started as a high school freshman, drawing digitally and on paper. Since 2018, he has explored various mediums, especially during his undergraduate career.
Studying in Montreal, Noah works to understand the various cultures of his peers. Surrounded by a welcoming Latin and French community, Noah now takes inspiration from his fellow international students. Alternatively, he uses this time to understand his own Japanese identity and how to reclaim his family’s lineage through creation and research.
To see more of his work, check out @granoah_art on Instagram!
“Present” the Puppet. Photo by Noah Rubel
Artist Statement
“Present” the Puppet is a giant marionette made entirely of resourced wood and screw hooks. I found the wood and hooks in scrap piles and resource centres. All the pieces were sanded and rounded using woodworking tools and then assembled with screw hooks and wood glue. This piece takes inspiration from the adventures of Carlo Collodi’s wooden puppet, Pinocchio. Throughout the book, Pinnochio finds himself lost and helpless, abandoned almost by the cruelties of reality. While many consequences are a by-product of his delinquent nature, plenty of punishments he faces are undeserved. As the world abandoned Pinocchio, Montreal abandoned this scrap wood. I wanted to reclaim the wood in this city and give it a purpose, in this case, as a marionette. I gave the puppet the name “Present” because he is a gift. He gave the wood a purpose but also gave something to me. Plenty of objects have personal value, and my piece investigates the value in everything. Living or not, what do we choose to care about? What values do we assign to things? The value I hold in “Present” is a present in itself, since, for any object, the ability to exist is beautiful.
“Present” the Puppet. Photo by Noah Ruel“Present” the Puppet. Photo by Noah Ruel
Connor Gottfried’s exhibition at S16 Gallery | Photo by Maya Ruel // The Concordian
Visual artist Connor Gottfried pays tribute to the technology of his childhood.
Jan. 1 is often synonymous with renewal and new beginnings. In 2024, the first of the year also happened to fall on a Monday, making this staple date even more symbolic – a new week, new month and new year all at once. As this new chapter begins, Canadian visual artist Connor Gottfried is right on theme with his first-ever exhibition, “Cartoon Acid,” which explores obsolescence and rebirth.
Gottfried’s artwork was showcased at Montreal’s S16 Gallery from Dec. 14 to Jan. 7. It consisted of colourful, punk technological pieces made with aluminum and acrylic, all featuring some sort of game system from many decades ago, such as an old Nintendo screen or the original Pacman video game. Two Care Bears plushies were sat in the middle of the room wearing what resembled a VR headset with a front screen playing the original Care Bear comics in loop.
Gottfried is an artist, a musician, and a “technologist” per his own words, based in Calgary, Alberta. He is the CEO of a company which develops e-learning softwares called Leara eLearning and has produced 25 music albums over the last thirty years as well. “I really like to explore the intersection of art and technology,” he said, “I was exposed to technology from a young age. I’ve always been fascinated by screens and interactions.” Gottfried started integrating screens and video games into his artwork a few years ago, which led to the creation of more psychedelic pieces such as seen in “Cartoon Acid.”
The exhibition was inspired not only by the artist’s childhood but also by the rapid pace at which technology has evolved since he was a kid. “My works are about the technology of my childhood, but also about technology’s childhood. There was a time where technology was more innocent, still developing, where we played together with technology. Now, it is evolving into artificial intelligence: it has started growing into its own adulthood and maturity,” Gottfried said. His artwork is an homage to those candid moments of joy he has shared during his childhood with what is now obsolete technology.
Kuh del Rosario, detail of “invocation na babayin itim,” 2023, in Summoning Black Beach, Centre Clark. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian.
From the mechanical to the organic, Concordia MFA students Émilie Allard and Kuh Del Rosario’s curious sculptural works draw uncanny connections between the familiar and the strange.
Émilie Allard’s cold and metallic readymades—a manufactured object repurposed as a work of art, think Marcel Duchamp—in Point of Irony, Point of Organ stand in stark contrast toKuh Del Rosario’s viscerally organic sculptures in Summoning Black Beach. However, the adjacent exhibits, currently occupying the two distinct gallery spaces in the Mile End’s Centre Clark, create a curious dialogue when approached as a pair.
View of the gallery. Émilie Allard, Point of Irony, Point of Organ, Centre Clark. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian.
Both galleries are sparsely peppered with the artists’ works that stand out against the cold white walls and concrete floors. Any didactics or titles to accompany the works on display have been excluded from the installation space, which encourages the viewer to approach the body of work as a cohesive whole, rather than a collection of individual pieces.
View of the gallery. Kuh del Rosario, Summoning Black Beach, Centre Clark. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian.
Each artist employs a strikingly unique visual language to engage with the familiarly unfamiliar. In other words, whether it is a set of reconfigured aluminium chair legs turned upside down and strung up with bells (Allard, “Le rêve et l’argent”) or an oozing pool of grimy water and salty, porous rocks (Del Rosario, “invocation na babayin itim”), both artists use recognizable materials to create unrecognisable, abstracted forms that call into question our ability to materialise that which only exists in our minds.
Installed high-up on the gallery wall of Allard’s exhibit, something between a photograph and a sculpture resembles a fleshy pair of ears, but they are abstracted beyond immediate recognition—it takes a moment for the viewer to grasp what they are looking at. The manipulated organs appear to be poised to listen to the hypothetical music of the stone xylophone below them, yet the room remains positively silent.
Émilie Allard, “Morse,” 2023, in Point of Irony, Point of Organ, Centre Clark. Photo by Emma Bell / The Concordian.
The worksseem to speak to the fallibility of memory—try remembering what a pair of ears looks like if you aren’t looking at one, or try remembering what a xylophone sounds like. What do you see in your mind’s eye? What do you hear? Is it, perhaps, an imperfect, abstracted version of the real thing? Allard’s work seems to seek out what is revealed to us when our minds attempt to piece together what something looks, feels or sounds like when we cannot immediately access it.
Similarly, Del Rosario’s sculptures harken back to the artist’s abstracted memories of her homeland of Batan in the Philippines. In a statement that accompanies the exhibit, Marissa Largo asks: “How does one return to a place that no longer exists?” This recalls the artist’s memory of a journey taken with her late father to a beach that she has not been able to locate since his passing. “Summoning Black Beach proposes an alternative way to return and to reconnect with that which has been lost,” Largo wrote.
Both Point of Irony, Point of Organ and Summoning Black Beach will be on view at Centre Clark through Nov. 25. A closing reception will be held on Nov. 21 at 6 pm, which will feature readings from the artists.
Outside the Palace of Me Exhibit at MMFA - Photo/Jiawei HONG
Shary Boyle’s exploration of the connection between society and the individual
This is a special show — the Toronto-based artist Shary Boyle has designed her exhibition on a stage setup at the Montreal Museum of Fine arts.
The moment visitors walk into the exhibition, they are standing in the middle of a huge stage. This implies that each individual not only observes society, but also participates in it. Shary Boyle’s artwork exposes a variety of phenomena in this society that we choose to ignore, which poses complex and sometimes paradoxical questions to visitors about our understanding of human nature.
The first sculpture visitors see is “The Potter”. It depicts an image of an artist’s process of making porcelain. However, the interesting thing is that this artist does not have a head, and there are six different porcelain pieces stacked up in front of them. Upon closer inspection, each piece has a different style that represents a different country. From the bottom up, they are China, Ghana, France, Greece, Peru, and Egypt.
Outside the Palace of Me Exhibit at MMFA – Photo/Jiawei HONGOutside the Palace of Me Exhibit at MMFA – Photo/Jiawei HONG
Boyle is also very strict in the selection of materials: terracotta, porcelain, underglaze, china paint, luster, and brass rods were all used in her installation.
The headless artist of “The Potter” is captured making a gesture of lifting the porcelain as if they are trying to put these civilizations on their own head. This is a reflection of us being in a culturally diverse society. It also represents the ideology of each culture within society.
“Oasis,” another piece on display, is a woman sculpture that has both male and female sexual attributes. Although her face is covered by her hair, she is sitting sideways and presenting her sexuality in a confident pose.
The idea of gender nonconformity created by this sculpture explores the people who break the gender norms that are expected for them. Her sexual organs look slicker than other parts of her body, because Shary Boyle uses luster as a representation of the gender stereotype, which is a beautiful and fragile material. This work poses the question to the viewer — why should the gender stereotypes in our minds be so solid?
Moving to the right side of the stage, visitors see a huge white statue sitting on the right side of the room, named “White Elephant”. Its whole body is painted and dressed in white. It is staring forward with no emotional expression on its face.
Outside the Palace of Me Exhibit at MMFA – Photo/Jiawei HONGOutside the Palace of Me Exhibit at MMFA – Photo/Jiawei HONG
In a flash, its head suddenly turns around. Many viewers were shocked by this art installation, while others did not even notice its movement. According to Boyle, the title is inspired by the proverb “elephant in the room,” which refers to the phenomenon of people ignoring a very obvious fact.
Shary Boyle sarcastically illustrates the whiteness of society, in which many politicians are aware of history of genocide, and the white privilege but choose to ignore it. The white elephant stands out in this dimly-lit exhibition room. According to my personal understanding, white has the ability to embrace any colour, just as this society can embrace any distinct being.
Belliveau uses bronze and aluminum casting to transform living objects, like flowers and fruit, into solid, permanent works of art. Photo by Mackenzie Lad.
Elisabeth Belliveau discusses inspiration for her exhibition, Ballroom
Elisabeth Belliveau, an award-winning Concordia alumna, still life animation artist, sculptor and art professor, opened the doors to her new exhibition, Ballroom, on Feb. 2.
The exhibition will be open for a month, and will feature a two-channel, seven-minute animation loop along with related sculptures.
The works in this exhibition were created during a residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in 2016. Photo by Mackenzie Lad.
“Fragile, vibrant and transformative,” are three words Belliveau used to describe the works in Ballroom.
The exhibition reflects on historically female art practices, such as genre painting, which portrays scenes from ordinary life. In the past, women were not permitted to paint religious portraits or court paintings, which limited them to painting still life.
“I look at the work of artists who were creating floral arrangements, still lifes or food that were coded and symbolic,” Belliveau said. “They could bury narratives, meanings and stories within these still life paintings that seemed really innocuous but were really complex. I think that’s really exciting to think about; women painting and finding their way into that world within those limitations.”
Belliveau has participated in an array of residencies across Canada and internationally. She began the works included in Ballroom during a residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in 2016. The theme of the residency was still life, which focuses on the arrangement of inanimate objects. Throughout the residency, Belliveau had the opportunity to work with bronze and aluminum casting.
Envisioning and crafting the transformation of materials was one of the artist’s favourite processes while creating the exhibition. These transformations are often done using delicate and temporary objects, such as food and flowers, that are casted into more permanent objects using metal. “It’s still fragile, but I really love that transformation, which is why I think I love animation too,” Belliveau said. “There’s something still, and then it transforms into something with emotion. I like that moment, that flip.”
Inspiration for Ballroom came from a selection of novels written by Brazilian author Clarice Lispector, including The Stream of Life and The Hour of the Star. These novels, as well as paintings by Giorgio Morandi, an Italian still life painter, sparked Belliveau’s ideas about time, transformation and still life. These ideas became intrinsic to Belliveau’s own work.
“Thinking a lot about Giorgio Morandi’s practice, reading Clarice Lispector and really reflecting on the history of still life inspired me,” the artist explained. “I’m an animator, so I think about what it means to bring still objects into life, into movement and into emotion.”
Belliveau elaborated on her work in another residency in Japan last summer, where she focused on Japanese traditions of still life and the genre of vanitas art, and was inspired by the rules of Ikebana—the Japanese art of flower arrangement. “In terms of still life, there’s this kind of European tradition. I tried to mix it up with some of the things I was really interested with in Japan,” she said.
Photo by Mackenzie Lad.
For Belliveau, still life is about domestic life and the objects surrounding us. “Paying close attention to what things are and where they come from link to ideas about labour, production, who makes things, how they get to our table and all the political movement around that,” Belliveau said.
Taking part in residencies is a crucial aspect of Belliveau’s creative process. As a full-time assistant professor at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alta., Belliveau is constantly busy throughout the academic year. “Residencies are the best way for me to have a total break from thinking about school and my students,” she said. “Usually, during the year, I’m stirring up ideas and I can’t wait to get back to the studio, so residencies have been incredibly important to me.”
Belliveau is currently preparing for her upcoming month-long residency in Fukuoka, Japan, this May where she will work with a 3D printer.
“I love to travel to see work, and I think that’s sort of what I do; I collect things, I read things and I try to see as much art as I can,” the artist said.
Ballroom is on display at La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse (4296 St-Laurent Blvd.) until Mar. 2. The gallery is open from Tuesday to Friday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. Entry is free.
Sandra Volny’s where does the sound go, where does it come from (2016). Photo by Richard-Max Tremblay.
From sonar use in Chile to the tradition of flags, the FOFA Gallery displays work of alumni artists
The three latest additions to Concordia’s FOFA Gallery incorporate various mediums and themes, yet all showcase the talent of Concordia alumni.
Among these works are Jerry Ropson’s the distance between outstretched arms (deadflag), Digital Erratics by Elisabeth and Tim Belliveau, and Sandra Volny’s Where does sound go, where does it come from.
The Belliveau siblings use a mixture of sculpture and video installations in their joint work, Digital Erratics. Tim recently completed his master’s at the university—this installation is part of his thesis. Elisabeth also attended Concordia where she completed her master of fine arts.
In the FOFA Gallery, the Belliveaus have displayed their respective pieces together. The common theme of exploration within the mediums of sculpture and moving images ties the vast installation’s components together. Digital Erratics includes sculptures from different materials, including glass, wood, ceramic and paper, among others. Video projections manipulate and experiment with moving images, stop-motion animation as well as the properties and aspects of colour. Digital Erratics thoroughly explores and experiments with its mediums, in traditional and contemporary ways, providing viewers with plenty to discover and consider.
Siblings Tim and Elisabeth Belliveau contributed their mixed media installation titled Digital Erratics to the FOFA’s current collection. Photo by Kirubel Mehari
Jerry Ropson’s the distance between outstretched arms (deadflag) is displayed in the York Corridor Vitrine of FOFA. The site-specific work is eye-catching, detailed and provides a new take on traditional viewing of art—the work is within the gallery, but only viewable outside of the space. When installing the piece, Ropson worked in the public space for several days, interacting with the audience and environment around him, further challenging the traditional forms of displaying art.
This installation focuses on the form of the flag, as a structure and material—a concept Ropson has focused on periodically since 2002. This piece also explores the conceptual and historical meanings behind the motif, including connections to both colonialism and concepts of nationality. “The meaning or specific connotations and uses of the flag have changed and morphed continually over the years,” Ropson said. “With origins deep-rooted in nautical history, warfare and land claiming, flags stand as just one more uneasy signifier of colonial history. The idea of the iconoclastic use of the flag is an important distinction.”
For Ropson, exhibiting in the FOFA Gallery was especially significant because this is his first exhibition in Montreal since leaving the city in 2009. This exhibit was also special for Ropson, as he and Elisabeth Belliveau worked on and completed their respective MFAs in fibres at Concordia at the same time, and previously exhibited at FOFA together in 2007. “It was so great to return to Montreal and see so many familiar faces at the vernissage, but also during the installation of the work,” Ropson said.
A variety of materials and mediums, including twine, ink, fabrics, vinyl and sculptural elements, were used in this project. The choice of materials and the placement of the individual pieces were important in this work. “I spent a lot of time considering the layout of the objects, and what went where and why,” Ropson said. “I also make very specific choices in the materials I work with. I utilize everyday materials that suggest the interrelations of social, cultural and economic structures.” His installation, the distance between outstretched arms (deadflag), also explores the flag’s ability to signify place and assert ideologies in a relatively conceptual way. There are a lot of complexities attached to such a simple material form, which Ropson aims to deconstruct in this piece.
the distance between outstretched arms (deadflag) by Jerry Ropson, a graduate of Concordia’s master’s program in fibres. Photo courtesy of Jerry Ropson.
Sandra Volny’s Where does sound go, where does it come from consists of a video installation accompanied by audio. The work focuses primarily on the subject of Chilean fishermen and their relationship to sound in the form of sonar. Volny, a Concordia MFA graduate, recently spent time in Chile with her art collective, Triangular Project, traveling the diverse landscape of the country and looking at the relationships different communities have with surrounding spaces.
Volny participated in a month-long residency while in Chile, and it was there that the majority of this art piece was formed. Volny had specific interest in sonar, and she looked at how it is used in the sea, both by animals and humans, in her artistic practice. The fishermen Volny centred the work around use traditional knowledge passed down through generations to navigate the sea.
The focus on the sea as a primary subject matter also addresses environmental issues. The piece highlights the contrast between traditional fishing and its more commercial forms, and depicts the ocean as one of the most fragile ecosystems in Chile. Volny’s main message for this piece is one of awareness and being present in one’s environment. “It’s about how you can navigate a space through sound, and about bringing an awareness to what’s around you,” she said.
With the addition of these new exhibitions, the FOFA Gallery connects with the Concordia community to provide diverse and exciting content, and showcases the talent of the school’s artistic community. The three exhibits explore varied and interesting themes, mediums and concepts, assuring the gallery holds something for everyone and provides students with a place to explore new insights, ideas and understandings.
These three exhibitions will be on display until Dec. 8. The FOFA Gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday to Friday. Admission is free.
Feature photo: Sandra Volny’s Where does sound go, where does it come from (2016). Photo by Richard-Max Tremblay.
