Manon De Pauw, The Apprentice, 2008, digital inkjet prints and lightboxes, one of a set of five elements, 75 x 100 cm each.
INTRIGUES | MANON DE PAUW
01.23.2010 | 03.07.2010
The works in Manon De Pauw’s Intrigues describe the path the artist has taken since the beginning of this decade. Photograms, photographs, performative setups, single-channel videos and multi-channel video installations investigate light and the image in ways as varied as they are poetic. Manipulation of accessories, materials and colours, unfurling gestures, hands and bodies, recourse to various means of mechanical and digital recording, and use of surfaces of inscription like paper, tables, screens and light boxes are all part of this protocol of artistic experimentation that generates a visual writing through which various ages of the image run like veins. If Manon De Pauw explores the appearing of the image — with its measure of unpredictability, suspended materiality, narrative potential and motion — it is because much of her work is produced in the darkroom or the shadows of the studio. She has the ability to latch onto the fragile breath of the image as it emerges under the effect of light, recording its luminous fluidity to create the tangible body of the image that asserts itself before our eyes. From the flickering caves of Lascaux to the candlelight paintings of Georges de la Tour, from the pure chromatic spaces of the canvases of Claude Tousignant to the coloured acetates of Michael Snow, the same emanating body of light and shadow endlessly recasts the image's spell. The notions "teaching body," "apprentice," "proof," "workshop" and "repertoire" in the works' titles best define the undercurrent of research centred on experimentation and the image-inventing process. Spectral silhouettes, rotating bodies, effects of transparency and opacity, fleeting and sustained glows in rays of light, multiple temporal effects and sound presences fuelled by the arsenal of technology all create a fascinating merry-go-round that cannot fail to intrigue the gaze and renew our unquenched thirst for the image.
Louise Déry, Curator
Manon De Pauw works in the field of video art, installation, performance, and photography. Her work has been shown in Canada, Europe, and Latin America including solo exhibitions at Optica (Montréal, 2007), Expression (St-Hyacinthe, 2005), and DARE-DARE (Montréal, 2003), amongst others. De Pauw has a BFA in Studio Arts form Concordia University (1997) and an MFA in Visual and Media Arts from the Université du Québec à Montréal (2003). She lives and works in Montréal.
Louise Déry holds a doctorate in art history and has been the director of the Galerie de l’UQAM since 1997. An exhibition curator, teacher and essayist, she has served as curator of contemporary art at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. She has realized many projects in Canada, USA, Asia and Europe including her recent post as commissioner for Canada at the 52nd Venice Biennale with an exhibition dedicated to David Altmejd.
