Color breathes life into the works of Nancy Létourneau. Her use of textures, both subtle and profound, add to the depth of the works. Nancy was introduced to running in 2011, the sport quickly became her escape. The popularity of this sport is a revelation for Nancy and in 2013, she participated in a major racing event "The Challenge Montreal-New York". In this same momentum, motivation for creating art resurfaced and so she turns to painting, her passion. In this wave of strides and finish lines she embarks on the development of "Footprint", a series of works inspired by running. The artist creates texture with prints of old running shoes soles recovered from her runners friend. Either in plaster or painting itself, these prints represent the sport of physical power and mental strength. In each work, Nancy adds one or more silhouettes of runners, discreet presence in an abstract landscape necessary to the soul of every solitary runner. Recipient of the 2013 Honorable Mention in the contest "Agents are seeking talent" of the Gallery House Dupont Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Nancy Létourneau takes an artistic approach imbued with her two passions, (painting and running) which combined allowed her to present "Footprint" in several exhibitions (solo and group) and running events. She is also recipient of the Award of Excellence and SIDIM Favorite X TERRA ART GALLERY in the section at SIDIM 2015. Nancy Letourneau is a graphic designer, painter and ultra marathoner native of Quebec. After studying fine arts at the Campus Notre-Dame-de-Foy and the Bachelor of Arts at the University of Quebec in Montreal, she continued her studies in graphic design. She graduated in 1999 and established his company Studio Pixels.
When I went to meet with Sylvia, this work immediately caught my eye and then held my attention. The texture running through the work, the intensity of her stare, the clarity of the black and white palette, it is always a combination of things that creates the magic of a piece. My current series of paintings is called “Close up.” The subjects of my paintings have many layers. We have our dark sides, and light, parts of ourselves that we show, and others we hide within. Together, this combination creates the beauty of who we are. Portraits of women are my main focus. I like to communicate with the viewer through the eyes of my subjects. My hope is that everyone sees and interprets the paintings in a different way, each time it is experienced. I am in a nonstop process of finding beauty and capturing the moment. The unpredictable nature of the layering of materials that I use between the paint, covers, and at the same time, emphasizes areas. Each step is a reaction to the one before. It is a constant building up of an image and tearing it down. The more layers I paint, the more interesting the surface becomes. This is a metaphor for humans and how we are shaped by what we have experienced in some form or another. My intention is to arrive at a balance between the order and the chaos, light and dark, tradition and expression, always searching for balance. The paintings begin to have a life of their own. Inspired by the colours and energy of Spain, Carole's work is multi-layered mixed media. Working on unstretched canvas she creates large colourful works from which smaller fragments are created. Exhibitions and reading, among other things, nourish her artistic practice. Places also provide her with impressions and feelings. Since 2009, Carole Morin divides her time between Montréal and Barcelona (Spain), the latter being an important source of inspiration for her. She creates like a poet, expressing herself through her sensibility, without thinking too much. She glues, paints, assembles colors, lines, pieces of paper, cut-out images. She sets them free to find their place on the canvas. Her work questions in particular the notion of "traces".
She studied Visual Art and Art History (Université du Québec à Montréal), later taking creativity workshops (artist Seymour Segal, Montréal). Dance and theatre improvisation (The Moving Center, New York) are also part of her background. Her primary medium is painting, but she also experimented with print-making and digital printing (Atelier Graff, Montréal). Her first professional exhibition was in 2005. To date, she has ten solo exhibitions and more than twenty selected group exhibitions to her name. Her work is part of public, corporate and private collections in Canada and Spain. She is represented by the Galerie L’Harmattan (Baie-Saint-Paul) and the Frame of Mind Gallery (Toronto).
See more of her work at carolemorin.com Varying textures, bright and muted colors of memories not yet forgotten. The Garbage Still series by Dana Edmonds explores the beauty that emerges from the things we leave behind while reminding us that nature does not fully wipe the slate clean. Dana Edmonds has a multidisciplinary practice that is balanced between painting and graphic + web design. Born in Montreal, where she currently lives and works, Dana received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in fine arts from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University, Halifax (1990). She has also studied Graphic Design at Dawson College and Art Education at McGill University. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Canada and the US, including One Earth, One Chance at the Rebecca Gallery, Toronto (2016), Show Your World at Gallery MC New York, New York (2016), the Ontario Society of Artists Exhibition at Neilson Park Creative Centre, Toronto (2016) and I am NSCAD at the Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax (2015). She is a recent recipient of an award from Canada Council for the Arts to produce a series of new paintings. My recent work employs the medium of oil painting to explore various forms of urban waste and its relationship to overconsumption. This new series renegotiates painting as being part of a reactive commentary on environmental issues and representations of nature in contemporary society. Demonstrating the omnipresent lingering of a ‘materialistic world’ through these landscapes, I look to develop forms that do not follow logical criteria but rather are based on subjective associations and formal parallels. Working from photographs rather than actual memory, my process further enhances and questions this aesthetic of distance. How intimately do we know our surroundings? What do we choose to ignore? What is valued versus what gets thrown away? By exploring the concept of converting the grotesque into the beautiful, I draw attention to these questions and concerns inciting the viewer to make new personal associations between art, everyday life and mass culture. Find more of Dana's work on her website.
Geneviève Sideleau lives and works in Montreal, where she earned her MFA from Concordia University. She has exhibited in Montreal, Ottawa, Northwest Territories, Boston, South Korea, and Serbia with an interdisciplinary practice involving painting, drawing, object-based work and installation. She has an interest in current affairs, human rights and women’s issues as well as a concern for the suffering of our needy; homeless, abused, neglected, aging, and mentally ill. Sideleau is an art instructor working in several art centers in Montreal and volunteers her time on occasion to give creative classes to the elderly. You can find her work in private and public collections across Canada, United States and abroad. You can see her work at www.genevievesideleau.com
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November 2019
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