From February 20 to March 21, 2015
Opening on Friday, February 20, 2015 at 5:30 PM 

For his first solo exhibition, Mathieu Grenier continues his investigations on the system-like nature of the work of art and its relationship with the exhibition space as context. Grenier designed a new installation for Arprim, in which a series of images show various kinds of paper freed from their function as medium to become the actual object of representation.

In documenting this material before the “act of art” has altered its surface, the artist highlights not only its inherent qualities but also the limitless possibilities it represents. Much like the blank page, which both haunts and inspires writers, a sheet of paper, still unmarred by text, evokes that specific moment in the creative process when there is only nothingness, a paradoxically infinite yet bounded white space from which any idea may emerge.

Through this installation, Mathieu Grenier invites the viewer to consider both the images shown and the walls of the exhibition space as sharing not only formal qualities but also a symbolic function. In doing so the artist calls out the moment of creation and the moment of presentation as two entangled entities whose connection to time can be modified.

The artist would like to thank Gwenaël Bélanger, Kevin Beaulieu, Marilyne Fournier, Marie-Josée Jean, Maude P. Hénaire, Marie-Claude Landry, Carolyne Scenna, Martin Schop, Centre SAGAMIE, PhotoSynthèse and the Hnatyshyn Foundation for supporting this project.

Mathieu Grenier lives and works in Montreal where he completed a bachelor’s degree in visual and media art at the Université du Québec à Montréal. His work has been showcased in many group exhibitions, at Diagonale, Les Territoires gallery, Galerie Trois Points and Espace Cercle Carré. His work will shortly be presented in solo exhibitions at Galerie Roger Bellemare et Christian Lambert as well as in the artist run centre Le Lobe in Chicoutimi, where he will also be doing a creative residency. In 2014 he was awarded the Charles Pachter Prize by the Hnatyshyn Foundation.

(text: Arprim)

More info: www.arprim.org