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Visiting Andrée-Anne Dupuis-Bourretâ€s recent exhibit at Circa Art Actuel was like taking a step into the artistâ€s inner landscape. An immersive, sensory experience of protruding shapes and suspended reality, the environment altered regular visual and spatial perceptions.

Moving around the installation was similar to walking through a forest, or entering new, unaccustomed surroundings for the first time. Stopping to investigate something that could be a plant, considering the view from each angle, experiencing your body in relation to the objects and organisms around you. As Dupuis-Bourret put it, her work is, “A path for the body and the senses to experience.”

The forms that inhabited the space were created using silk screened and twisted sheets of paper, which were covered with lines and pixelated patterns of different tonal qualities. The sculptures began their life as 2D objects, pieces of paper, before the artist transformed them into their eventual 3D formations, which came to resemble organic matter.

An interesting element of Dupuis-Bourretâ€s installation was its juxtaposition with its outdoor environment. The galleryâ€s open window let in the sounds from Sainte-Catherine, and allowed a glimpse of dreary office buildings across the street. The contrast was marked, and further highlighted the surreal quality of the work. In her artistâ€s statement, Dupuis-Bourret says that she is generally interested in the threshold between the real and imagined, the interior and exterior, the outside world and inner thought.

Documenting these processes, including the creation and assembly of her works, is an important part of Dupuis-Bourretâ€s practice. She posts photos of her installations on her research blog, Le Cahier Virtuel. These actions multiply the existence of her pieces, which become both in-gallery installations and online photographic records. The incorporation of the online consumption environment is interesting and something many artists are realizing is increasingly important in todayâ€s Internet-centric world. Many audiences will only ever see her work online, which in some ways makes this digital format equally important to the physical manifestation.

Andrée-Anne Dupuis-Bourret works across: collaborative and evolving site-specific installations, paper sculptures, images, photographic documentation and artistâ€s books. She has exhibited at galleries in: Canada, USA, Mexico, Holland, Italy, Israel, and Australia. In 2011, she was awarded the Governor General of Canadaâ€s gold medal for her Masterâ€s degree project. She is currently completing her PhD in interdisciplinary approaches using print media at UQAM. She also teaches printmaking and is the author of two blogs: Le Cahier Virtuel, and Le Territoire des Sens. For a preview of her upcoming work, take a look at her recent blog about her summer atelier.

Circa art actuel
Andrée-Anne DUPUIS-BOURRET | Francis ARGUIN
May 16 – July 11, 2015
www.circa-art.com

What role are we playing in these exchanges? Why do many encounters remain static, identical, leaving no space for thought or connection? Days can play out like a formula repeatedly entered into a spreadsheet – CTRL+C, CTRL+V, CTRL+C, CTRL+V.

Les Territories, is currently presenting the work of two emerging artists, Maria Meinild and Émilie Franceschin, who both explore life and societal norms as purely a performance. By examining the daily behavioral patterns that are embedded in our notion of normalcy, the artists allow the questioning of these ideas.

Maria Meinildâ€s video, Curtain, explores life as a staged presentation of our expectations and preconceived ideas of what life is, and what it should be. Incorporating elements from both theatre and film, and expressed as a dialogue with slight variations and repetitions, she forces the viewer to question the theatrics of daily life, and how necessary the performance is to maintain oneâ€s identity.

Mariaâ€s short video features two main characters, at times reading from a script and at times speaking naturally. The female character repeats the phrase, “It takes solid preparation to provide spontaneity,” at different speeds and intonations – like sheâ€s practising a line. Someone is introduced into the video as a “stranger” in the same way characters can be announced in theatre. The woman repeatedly corrects herself like sheâ€s made a mistake on a line and is restarting the scene. Artificial visual creations scatter the set; there are oranges, skewered with cocktail umbrellas and arranged on a table. At Les Territories the video is projected onto a round surface that feels almost like youâ€re looking through a telescope or a pair of binoculars.

Émilie Franceschinâ€s series, Secrets, is presented in an adjacent room to Mariaâ€s work, and is more tactile and tangible in its exhibition. It includes an assortment of objects, images and a video, which all culminated in a performance on Saturday June 20. The act called, Iâ€ll Be Back Soon, saw the artist invite attendees to step into her journeys to understand her repeated struggles, real and imagined.

The objects created in advance of the performance are on display at Les Territoires for the duration of the exhibition. Her photographs, drawings and artifacts interact to reveal the work behind her performance, during the conception and before the execution. These objects offered audience members a new way of approaching the performance, which ultimately must be experienced. Viewers entered the act having seen these tangible materials and with a deeper understanding of the history and motivations that have driven the artistâ€s work. Émilie explores the body, its visceral quality, and intimate relationships with its surroundings. The performance, like a secret, is something that canâ€t be spoken – it must be experienced for it to become real and tangible.

The interactions between these two artists in the Les Territoires space is a fascinating one in that both approach this idea of life as performance in particularly unique, and moving, ways. Émilieâ€s idea draws its power from her very personal selection of artifacts, and her moving live performance. Mariaâ€s approach is impactful by forcing a sense of detachment and unreality between the characters in her video. Additionally, her piece is scripted and produced in a way that presents many layers for audience interpretation.

Both exhibits are on display at Les Territoires in the Belgo Building until July 4, 2015.

Maria Meinild

Maria completed an MFA from the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen; she has also studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Working primarily in video, but also extending to photo, collage, and installation, she has exhibited at New Jörg and Kunstverein Das Weisse Haus in Vienna, at Fauna in Copenhagen, and at ReMap4 in Athens. She was born in Karlshamn, Sweden, and lives and works between Copenhagen and Vienna.

Émilie Franceschin

Émilie is a graduate of the Toulouse School of Fine Arts, and has presented at performance festivals in France, Italy, England, Belgium and Germany. She has also participated in residencies at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, and in Dusseldorf. Recently she participated in the European Museums Night at the Calbet Museum in France. She lives and works in Toulouse.