ALL MEMBRANES ARE POROUS
Margaret Dragu
Pascal Grandmaison
Sarah Anne Johnson
Zoe Kreye
Luanne Martineau
Jeremy Shaw
Central Gallery
September 24 to December 31, 2016
Curated by Charo Neville, Kamloops Art Gallery
Flesh, organs, eyes to the soul, under my skin, silhouette, inner voice, scars – the human body, its physical form, internal experience, external representation and metaphoric existence in the world is intimately familiar to us all. The body is deeply personal and inescapably public. It has been the central subject of a wide range of study within medical, spiritual, philosophical and sociological disciplines.
Embodiment and phenomenological experience can include but are not exclusive to social bodies, political bodies, differently abled bodies and gendered bodies. They encompass inclusive and exclusive spaces, personal and governmental rights, and technological or scientific experimentation. The body has also been the subject of artistic expression since the first recorded mark, often a record of how bodies were perceived and upheld at particular time periods, reflecting economic status, social morals and gender roles. Artists of the last few decades have been interested in exposing the power dynamics implicit through the representation of the body in a multitude of forms.
This exhibition looks at this topic by way of an open and fluid inquiry. Rather than foregrounding representations of the body tied to identity, the exhibition, like its title indicates, is porous and flexible, experiential and visceral. The work of this group of Canadian artists addresses the body in relation to knowledge, intimacy, loss, death, class, race, community, aging, architecture, nature, abstraction, movement and intervention.
It includes Margaret Dragu’s cumulative archive of performances and relational workshops addressing iterative decay, memory loss and personal legacy with a primary focus on the body as a source of knowledge. Zoe Kreye’s installation represents two community-based projects emerging from an invitation to perform the body in relation to sculptural objects and built spaces. Jeremy Shaw offers an experience for one person at a time that takes the viewer into a hypnotic experience of memory and personality. Sarah Anne Johnson’s installation translates her grandmother’s traumatic experience as a hospital patient by way of the artist’s own body and the viewer’s navigation of a clinical space, while Pascal Grandmaison’s ethereal videos provide a mesmerizing doubling of natural and bodily phenomenon. Luanne Martineau's soft sculptures evoke internal and external body parts through ambiguous forms that oscillate between figuration and abstraction. Each of these artists explores the notion of embodiment through an inimitable approach to our common experience of inhabiting a body.
Coinciding performances and workshops with movement practitioners integrate with the exhibition to activate the space and the exhibition’s theme.
Installation view of All membranes are porous showing works by Pascal Grandmaison:
at left, DISSOLUTION I, 2015
video projection, 4:44 minutes;
and at right, NOSTALGIE 2 (2015)
video projection, 8:38 minutes
Courtesy of the Artist
Photo: Cory Hope, Kamloops Art Gallery
All membranes are porous
As a supplement to the Kamloops Art Gallery’s exhibition All membranes are porous, the KAG has produced an online pdf reference providing a list of works and artists included in the exhibition.