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.
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.