Louis Fortier‘s small-scale sculptures at Galerie Donald Browne are disturbing and beautiful, mesmerizing and haunting. Mounted straight on the walls, Fortier’s array of wax sculptures are reminiscent of a scientist’s specimen collection, each creature pinned up for examination. The sculptures themselves are self-portraits, casts of the artist’s own face and body which are then distorted, squashed, and melted.

From the gallery press release:

For fifteen years, Louis Fortier revisits his anatomy – particularly his face – like a diary. Searching equivalences between the fugitive nature of emotions and the unpredictable character of materials such as wax and plaster, the work trifles with the usual fixity of portrait genre to explore the notions of wandering and identity derivation.

The artist here and there excavates a few elements from previous series. Without regard for hierarchy, the faces of the noblesse coexist with organic residues and other anatomic fragments, encountered through a maze of experiments and transformations. The project is affirmed in its desire to reinterpret the past in light of our present age.

Fortier deconstructs the historical model of the frieze, one that has a mission to engrave our memory with traces of the great human epics. The artist is looking to create a dense continuum, allowing the physical apprehension of these accumulated traces. Indeed, in revealing his story of the last fifteen years, the physiognomic and temporal distortions speak of vulnerability, transience, precariousity, and even oblivion.

Galerie Donald Browne, space 528
Louis Fortier
Métamorphoses
February 25 – April 14, 2012
www.galeriedonaldbrowne.com