Lisette Lemiieux manipulates light by manipulating her materials. Her current exhibition at Galerie SAS titled Distillats de lumière consists of a series of sculptures which glow, reflect, absorb, and diffract light. Lemieux’s choice of colour is minimal – black, white, and silver – but her range of materials is unusual and extensive, including paper, metal, glass, thin layers of porcelain, radiographic film, even eraser residue. Her interventions are often rather complex, such as her piece L’assoupissement du pharaon: Gisant (au sol) made of glass and x-ray film fragments. Cut into irregular square shapes, a shimmering black layer of these materials cover a mattress-sized plinth. Most squares lie flat, but some are stacked on their side, absorbing the light, and creating the shape of a human figure. The arrangement of the fragments remind me of a desert rose crystal – fitting for the black shadow of the pharaoh. The piece is displayed in the gallery’s smallest exhibition room, transforming the space into a tomb.

Rather more delicate is the work titled Gommer. Dark grey eraser residue is trapped between two sheets of glass. The residue is arranged in parallel strips, much like lines of text. Floating in mid-air they are the remains of words unsaid, the spidery, cloudy clumps throwing intricate shadows on the gallery wall.
All of Lemieux’s 3D works are inventive and intriguing, allowing the viewer to reflect on her open statements.

Galerie [sas], space 416
Lisette Lemieux
Distillats de lumière
October 22 – December 3, 2011
www.galeriesas.com