loading...
  • (no description)

  • (no description)

  • (no description)

  • (no description)

  • (no description)


Porcelaine


Carte grise à Evergon


Jennifer Campbell, Léopold L. Foulem, Eduardo Ralickas, Mackenzie Stroh, Evergon
April 17 to May 24, 2003

A bilingual publication accompanies the exhibition.

Transfiguration. To transform a thing’s outward appearance by endowing it with a smashing and glorious outline of feature. To transmute by bestowing an unusual beaut of figure. For an aesthetics of transfiguration.

- Eduardo Ralickas, Transfiguration No. 1 (Porcelain Fragments).

Each year, Carte grise makes it possible to discover a particular artist’s vision of contemporary photography, by way of an exhibition and a publication. As part of this program, Evergon presents us with Porcelaine, an exhibition of work by Jennifer Campbell, Léopold L. Foulem, Eduardo Ralickas and Mackenzie Stroh, as well as some work of his own.

With Porcelaine, Evergon lingers on the surface of things, on the work of appearances, and on the often fragile and sometimes permeable boundaries which delimit space and objects, circumscribe beings, and protect against fragmentation. From the photographic emulsion to the glaze used in ceramics and porcelain, and to our own skin, Evergon presents us with a reading of photography that thwarts its supposed transparency and brings into play transformation, indeed permutation and even transfiguration.

Léopold L. Foulem’s ceramics set themselves up as unbridled collages, juxtaposing motifs and shapes in an anachronistic manner. What Foulem deploys in his work is the range of appearances and allurement, and also of kitsch – a perfect working of the surfaces that this Carte grise reflects upon. Evergon’s own work, although it too borrows from this idea of recontextualising motifs and juxtaposing incongruous images, offers us the underside of the smooth surface of the glaze. The paint is peeling on his photographed figurines and the body of Margaret (the artist’s mother) bears the traces of time. Nevertheless, the uniform lustre of the photographic epidermis resists. The glossy quality of the photographic paper also reinforces Mackenzie Stroh’s strange self-portraits, whose vitrified quality is enhanced by great care for that other epidermis, the surface of the face. Petrified and yet fragile – both psychologically and physically – the various personalities Stroh incarnates – transfigures – raise questions about identity and the perception of the self by pastiching and subverting the world of advertising. Jennifer Campbell is also present in her work, not as a subject/object but rather as a performing body. She makes her body into a surface, a territory where banal and everyday objects strangely gain a firm hold. Campbell’s colourful compositions give rise to unusual transformations and permutations. It is around this notion of permutation that the visual and textual work of Eduardo Ralickas also turns. By attempting to arrest, through the image and words, the lightning-like fall and breaking of a fragile object, Ralickas examines the interchangeable translations by means of which language attempts to express the photograph and in which sensations seek to usurp thought. And yet, what is attempted to be expressed in words and what is revealed exist only on the surface of an image.


Originally from Vancouver, Jennifer Campbell was born in 1976. She completed her BFA – Honours at the University of Victoria (1998) and is currently working on her MFA in Photography at Concordia University in Montreal. Her work focuses on photo-based media, with an interest in notions of transformation through the use of her body as performative object.

Also known as Celluloso Evergonni, Eve R. Gonzales and Egon Brut, Evergon was born in Niagara Falls, Ontario in 1946. He received his MFA at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York (1974). He currently lives and works in Montreal and teaches photography at Concordia University. Evergon’s work focuses primarily, but not exclusively on gay male cultures. His international career as an artist spans over thirty years, and his work has been extensively presented in exhibitions and publications.

Léopold L. Foulem was born in Bathurst, New Brunswick in 1945. He received his MFA at Indiana State University (1988) and lives and works in Montreal. His ceramic work challenges stereotypes and pushes the boundaries of form and function. He is internationally renown in the ceramics world and is the recipient of the Saidye Bronfman Award for Excellence in the Crafts (2001) and the Jean A. Chalmers National Crafts Award (1999).

Eduardo Ralickas was born in São Paulo, Brazil in 1976. He holds a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal (2000) and is presently pursuing his MFA in Art History at the Université de Montréal. His practice takes several forms – photography, installation and writing – and seeks to weave together links between disciplines and media.

Mackenzie Stroh is a photo-based artist working in Montreal. Born in 1971, she received her BFA in Intermedia from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver and her MFA in Studio Arts / Photography from Concordia University in Montreal (2003). Her artistic practice deals primarily with contemporary portraiture and the representation of women. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows within Canada.

Evergon wishes to thank his favourite model, Margaret. Léopold L. Foulem thanks Prime Gallery and Galerie Lieu Ouest, and Mackenzie Stroh extends her thanks to Alana Riley, Chris Dixon and Marisa Portolese for their assistance.




|