Archipel
2011-2016
Rocks of various shapes, textures and sizes compose Archipel, a mineralogical collection of sorts, presented through photography. Giving the impression of geological specimens or celestial objects, the images provoke a loss of scale, between proximity and distance. Before the object taken out of its context, we could find ourselves so close that we could not feel its dimension, or else so far that we could only construct an image through imagination. Archipel is a metaphore for territory and community, and evokes a universe in which the individuals are inseparable from the collective, like the ensemble indivisible from its components.
Archipel suggests an individual reading of every specimen, even as it remains forever connected to the others and to the whole—a group of islands or ideas where one can be alone or travel from one to another. Giving the impression of appearing and disappearing, the specimens seem solid, but photography makes them elusive, almost vaporous. The stones, isolated and magnified, allow us to see their details, textures, marks, scars, or transparencies, which tell of the stories and natural forces that remain, however, imperceptible, at the surface of things.
Thanks Jacinthe Robillard, Christine Arseneault-Boucher, Gentiane La France, Valérie Litalien.
Installation view of Archipel. Presented by Admare at the Magdalen Islands airport, 2016.
Installation view of Glissements de terrain (Land Slides), an exhibition curated by Mariane Bourcheix-Laporte with the work of artists Ryan Mathieson and Anne-Marie Proulx. Presented at the Toast Collective, in conjunction with Capture Photography Festival in Vancouver. Photos: Ryan Mathieson
2011-2016
Rocks of various shapes, textures and sizes compose Archipel, a mineralogical collection of sorts, presented through photography. Giving the impression of geological specimens or celestial objects, the images provoke a loss of scale, between proximity and distance. Before the object taken out of its context, we could find ourselves so close that we could not feel its dimension, or else so far that we could only construct an image through imagination. Archipel is a metaphore for territory and community, and evokes a universe in which the individuals are inseparable from the collective, like the ensemble indivisible from its components.
Archipel suggests an individual reading of every specimen, even as it remains forever connected to the others and to the whole—a group of islands or ideas where one can be alone or travel from one to another. Giving the impression of appearing and disappearing, the specimens seem solid, but photography makes them elusive, almost vaporous. The stones, isolated and magnified, allow us to see their details, textures, marks, scars, or transparencies, which tell of the stories and natural forces that remain, however, imperceptible, at the surface of things.
Thanks Jacinthe Robillard, Christine Arseneault-Boucher, Gentiane La France, Valérie Litalien.
Installation view of Archipel. Presented by Admare at the Magdalen Islands airport, 2016.
Installation view of Glissements de terrain (Land Slides), an exhibition curated by Mariane Bourcheix-Laporte with the work of artists Ryan Mathieson and Anne-Marie Proulx. Presented at the Toast Collective, in conjunction with Capture Photography Festival in Vancouver. Photos: Ryan Mathieson