IGNITION is an annual exhibition that features new work by students currently enrolled in the Studio Arts or Humanities graduate programs at Concordia University. It provides an upandcoming generation of artists with a unique opportunity to present ambitious, interdisciplinary works in the professional context of a gallery with a national and international profile. Graduate students work directly with Gallery staff to produce an exhibition that places an emphasis on critical, innovative, and experimental work, engaging in the exploration and consideration of diverse media and practices. IGNITION is of interest to all students and faculty, the art community, and the general public.
May 1 – May 31, 2014
Projects selected by Iliana Antonova, critic and independent curator, and Michèle Thériault, director of the Gallery
David Arseneau, Candice Davies, Colleen Heslin, Jennifer Lupien, Timothée Messeiller, Celia Perrin Sidarous, Les Ramsay, Dana Samuel
Opening
Wednesday April 30, 5:30 – 7:30 pm
Independent curator and critic, Iliana Antonova, and gallery director, Michèle Thériault, selected the eight artists for the tenth edition of IGNITION. Working in a variety of disciplines, this year’s artists engage with the mediation of popular cultural and personal visual archives, mimetic fabrication, manipulation or re-purposing of vernacular materials and the interpretation of historical works.
David Arseneau’s painting Items and Weapons from Friday the 13th Part 1 to Part 12 assembles on one visual plane the historical shift in objects specific to the films bearing the same title. The painting becomes a chronology of changing technologies acting as an archive of popular culture iconography. As a result of close observation of objects and details or by photographing photographs from historical publications, Celia Perrin Sidarous work indexes a personalized collection of colloquial material. Through scenographic installations, her work methodologically occupies space beyond the image border.
As nearly invisible architectural interventions, Candice Davies places sculptural replicas of utilitarian elements, electrical outlet faceplates, in the gallery. The simplicity of the refabricated objects disappears and in effect conceals the functional nature of the form. In contrast, Jennifer Lupien’s Plinthe draws attention to spatial banality by disruption. Lupien modifies the built environment by embellishing existing ornamentation: aiming to enlighten viewer’s perceptions and assumptions of art objects and spaces of presentation.
Colleen Heslin’s monochromatic canvases are composed of discarded domestic fibers altered through experimentation with dying and craft techniques. The resulting compositions subtly erase the garment fabric’s history, shaping parameters for renewed valuations. In-Betweeness, a satirical project by Timothée Messeiller, interrogates the function of everyday objects through minimal absurd alterations. Messeiller collects rejected materials and transforms their purpose, rendering obsolete their intended functionality. Les Ramsay engages with discourses of excess through an unconventional formalist approach to abstract painting: he collages appropriated ready-made materials together producing new objects. Through aesthetic similarities, Ramsay’s sculptural extensions elicit unexpected narratives in relation to his wall-mounted tableaus.
Inspired by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Dana Samuel’s project is an interpretation of the constructivist artist’s Telephone Paintings (1923). In her iteration of the work, five sound compositions and vinyl graphics mediate Moholy-Nagy’s process of communicating parameters for graphic production without providing the visuals.