EXHIBITIONS 2024

September – October 2024
Julie René de Cotret
Liminal Phenomenology

From September 14 to October 22, 2024, the Centre d’artistes Voix Visuelle hosted the exhibition Liminal Phenomenology by the artist Julie René de Cotret under the curatorship of Cesar Forero.

The opening of the exhibition was Thursday, September 19, 2024, at 5 p.m.

A closing event took place on Tuesday October 22 in the presence of the curator. The exhibition will then be presented at the Temiskaming Art Gallery from November to December 2024.

Liminal Phenomenology
“When stories go from being a liminal event to a visual narrative built to endure.

Julie René de Cotret‘s work questions the liminality of stories and their fragility in time. If these stories are not told, protected with tact and courage, they tend to disappear; they will become what the world of the past was and become a liminal event of time and space of our ancestors. The spaces become a place that probably existed but is not in the collective memory of the inhabitants. The characters, flora and fauna of this site weaken over time, slowly leaving like the wind that passes and does not return.

René de Cotret engages with the stories and with the space actively, growing a new character from within that needs to be presented in a visually impactful way so that we do not forget it. This character is not aggressive or heartbreaking; on the contrary, it appears as a hybrid being – between the human, the animal and the plant world.

We are aware of the evolution of languages, spaces, and that stories change over time because we ourselves transform them. These stories situate our context, of the land that we belong to. We want to leave these spaces and stories for our descendants so that they can continue to build their own. So, the spaces and stories are not liminal, they take cues from legends; witnessed, sighted and dated — they deserve to be told and documented in art for the future.

In the gallery we find a series of short videos that require planning and assembly. They are a synthesis of the fabled legends that grew from this “place”, which must be protected, and in a somewhat romantic way it makes us smile wanting them to continue. The photographic images presented on the walls are photo documentation and photo performances. The gallery space becomes the framework for reconstructing history and the opportunity to document everything: water, plants, smells, sounds and the presence of life in general.

René de Cotret brings to this exhibition their past and present artistic research, with a firm and accurate political commentary.”

César Forero, curator
Read the curator’s text in spanish.

Biographies
César Foreo is a Canadian artist of Colombian origin, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) and member of the LGTBQIA2S+ community with training in architecture, sculpture, painting and public performance. He is a member and exhibition coordinator of the International Academy of Ceramics AIC/IAC. He holds an MFA from Minnesota State University and an MFA from the University of Waterloo, Ontario. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Temiskaming Art Gallery, the Society of Sculptors of Canada, the Ontario Society of Artists and the Contemporary Art Committee in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, of which he is the founder and current president.

His artwork and performances have been exhibited internationally, are in public and private collections, and have won national and international awards. His practice emphasizes social, humanitarian and environmental issues.

He is a curator and facilitator in several artistic organizations.

Julie René de Cotret is a French-Canadian independent artist and programmer, born in Tiohtiá:ke / Montreal. They now live and practice in the Ajetance Treaty Territory. They have exhibited and independently programmed exhibition projects internationally: Canada, US, Sweden, Greece, Switzerland, Korea, Germany. René de Cotret is cofounder and independent Artistic Director of the artist residency program at the School of Environmental Science, University of Guelph, Ontario, (2009-2022). Current Artistic Director of the Fabulous Festival of Fringe Film. They have been a board member for 17 years, and have chaired two boards of Directors.

Read the artist’s statement.

This exhibition is part of the Connexions Visuelles program of the Ontario Arts Council in collaboration with the Temiskaming Art Gallery.

The Centre d’artistes Voix Visuelle would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council, Canadian Heritage, the City of Ottawa, AGAVF, Desjardins Ontario and Marcil Lavallée for their support.

May – July 2024
Curator : Mathilde Guérin Guillermo
Voix Jeunes Talents | Génération Visuelle

From May 30 to July 9, 2024, the Centre d’artistes Voix Visuelle hosted the 11th edition of the exhibition Voix Jeunes Talents: génération visuelle, curated this year by Mathilde Guérin Guillermo.

“The TV screen is the retina of the mind’s eye. (…) Therefore, whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those who watch it. Therefore, television is reality, and reality is less than television.” Brian O’Blivion (Jack Creley), Videodrome, Cronenberg (1984)

What if visual art were the retina of the third eye, of our mind?

When David Cronenberg directed his organic horror film Videodrome (1984), he staged his anxieties that feel contemporary: what if digital identity became our own? Isn’t it already?

Questioning human being’s technological future, he argues that the screen is the retina of the mind’s eye, our own, creating a new layer of reality that replaces reality itself. In a sociological aspect, the omnipresence of the media in our lives is a producer of loneliness, even a vector of alienation.

However, it is by the creation of other narratives born of a reflection of the digital, mixed with the artistic, that the renewal of narrative and representational spaces takes place. This renewal is that of a generation born into the digital age, evolving in tandem with it. Some consider this interdisciplinarity obscene. But what if, on the contrary, this union of digital and artistic allowed us to revel in this obscenity by restoring our share of humanity? Faced with the visual we see not only our inner selves, but also a part of our thoughts in a society raised from the cradle by screens.

Wouldn’t reappropriating these digital codes be a way of fleshing out our contemporary feelings, bringing them to life by creating a collective catharsis? This new generation of artists is exploring our own digital becoming, or at least uses its tools to better create.

Mathilde Guérin Guillermo, curator

The Centre d’artistes Voix Visuelle would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council, Canadian Heritage, the City of Ottawa, AGAVF, Marcil Lavallée and Desjardins Ontario for their support.

April – May 2024
Chloé Beaulac
Lieu Saint

From April 12 to May 21, 2024, the Centre d’artistes Voix Visuelle hosted the exhibition Holy Place by Chloé Beaulac.

The opening of the exhibit was on Thursday, April 18, 2024, at 5 p.m.

Like an ethnologist, Beaulac explores and documents numerous sites with a spiritual vocation, in Canada and around the world. It targets various places and cultures to cover a multitude of subjects and themes linked to theology, traditions, heterogeneous and historical beliefs of various cultural communities, paying particular attention to mysticism, shamanism and especially the place of nature.

Photographic documentation, drawings and observation notes then undergo a process of deconstruction-reconstruction by which the artist interprets the images and the information collected to amalgamate them with her personal iconography. Through this process, she formulates universal, evocative visual stories, which give free rein to the multiple interpretations of the spectators. Beaulac is primarily interested in the creation of fictional sanctuaries and the reinterpretation of ancient rituals in a timeless context. The result is a sort of contemporary pilgrimage where she deconstructs and reconstructs the common notion of the place of worship.

Chloé Beaulac lives in Montérégie and Estrie. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University (2010) where she specialized in printed arts. Although her primary source of inspiration remains prints, she is a multidisciplinary artist who also uses photography, video, drawing, painting, installation and sculpture to communicate her perception of the world.
She has presented her work in several public art projects, solo exhibitions, group exhibitions and artist residencies in Quebec, Canada and internationally. She has developed and produced several bodies of work thanks to the generous support of various organizations including the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Conseil des arts de Longueuil, the Canada Arts Council, the Société de développement des enterprises culturelles as well as the Offices jeunesse internationaux du Québec, to name just a few. Throughout her career Beaulac has been awarded several prizes and distinctions for her creations.

Le Centre d’artistes Voix Visuelle would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council, Canadian Heritage, the City of Ottawa, AGAVF, Marcil Lavallée and Desjardins Ontario for their support.

February-March 2024
Christine (cricri) Bellerose
Sentient Creature

The opening of the exhibit Thursday, February 8, 2024, at 5 p.m. included a short movement performance art presentation by the artist at 6 p.m.

Sentient Creature is a complex project that is anchored in the creation of living tableaux and somatic practice – a holistic tradition of mindful breathing. The artist, Christine (cricri) Bellerose, calls this form of movement performance art, “ecoperformance somadance”. She works through an ecosensitive movement performative approach, the somadance technique, and the manipulation of textiles.

The exhibition presents snippets of ecoperformances carried out in the American Southwest desert high plateaus in winter 2022-2023 and on the Atlantic East Coast, in June 2023. The multimedia installation project includes one short experimental film, a series of self-portraits by the artist as well as two prints from her collaboration with American photographer Sarah West. It will also include a performative movement art portion, which will take place at the heart of the gallery in two stages: The first of short duration, during the opening (February 8), and the second of long duration, at the end of the exhibition, from 11 a.m. (March 14).

The Sentient Creature series explores the soul of a place through time. At the same time the artist inhabits and is inhabited by the layers of animist stories of the ‘’already there’’. These stories are carried through by the wind and feature the cactus sprouts, the clouds, the morning moon, and the mist of Herring Cove. From embodied stories in movement and textile manipulation emerge living sculptures bringing together woman and earth. Metamorphosis, archetypal imagination, and ecosensitivity are processes and values unfolded during the weaving with the somatic intelligence of places.

Christine Bellerose known as cricri is an artist-researcher in ecosensitive knowledge systems. Originally from Montreal, she now resides in the National Capital Region (Canada). It was during an 8-year stay in China and Vietnam that she migrated from the practice of performing arts to movement performance art. On her return, she continues the ecosensitive exploration of the female body with cold, wind and water encounters which she documents through video. Her narrative images and theoretical writings circulate in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. In 2021, she received her doctorate from York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design. Christine also works to broaden the scope of ecosomatic thinking and the integration of neurodiversity within the government administrative body.

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