Monter des montagnes (Climbing mountains)
Photographs and embroidery.
Analog prints on fiber paper and cotton thread & cyanotype on handmade paper (Retailles)
Exhibition presented at
Fais-Moi L'Art Gallery
900 Cherrier Street, Montreal
from May 13 to 31
Opening: May 13 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Reading-performance: May 19, 27 and 31, 5:30 p.m.
Curator : Sophie Dubeau Chicoine
It all starts with a solo trip through the Swiss Alps. The hope of climbing mountains and letting everything else behind. The accumulation of a hundred black and white pictures. These two colors which remind us of black ink running across the white pages of a travel book. A book filled with writings on love, the ardor of certain pains and the infinite beauty of the landscapes surveyed.
“I feel like writing about love, I think, and about what I’ve learned.” A clear desire to spread softness to others and to one self. First by diluting a selection of memories into the pools of a darkroom. The impression of finding new images, new stories. Then by mapping the landscape and its memories through embroidery, this time in color. Going beyond the photographic frame to pave the way for new interpretations.
Among these landscapes, an (in)visible blue that crosses them. Reminiscing the sky, the water and the reflections of the snow. The desire to dive head first into an excess of soft blue through cyanotypes turning the negative image into a positive one. A mass of blue like the soundtrack of a blues song. Thus unfolds a project in a fivefold slowness: that of long hikes in the mountains, of time spent in the darkroom, of delicate embroidery, of the slow reaction of the cyanotype and finally, of moments shared here and now. A slowness that is crumpled with the effervescence of internal thoughts taking shape as extensions of the works, on pieces of paper. Fragments of a non-linear love story and a common search for softness. Here, time slows down, then stops.
-Sophie Dubeau Chicoine
I would like to thank Le Club Photo 3e Oeil, André Parmentier, L'impressionie, center d'artistes, Sophie Dubeau Chicoine, my Swiss friends who hosted me and the people I met along the way. Thanks also to all the authors of the self-help books I've read over the past few years. Thanks to my shrink. And especially thank you to the people I love and who do my soul good.
Crédit photos: Jean-Michael Seminaro
Crédit photos: Jean-Michael Seminaro