WANTON PINK & LIBERTINE BLUE
presented in the context of
Dessiller: s'ouvrir au hors-champs / Awakening: seeing beyond the frame
February 5 — May 15, 2022
Musée d'art de Joliette, QC.
Curated by : Anne-Marie St-Jean Aubre
Lorna Bauer, Marie-Claire Blais, Nadège Grebmeier Forget, Alicia Henry, Tau Lewis, Michaëlle Sergile, and Eve Tagny
Curatorial statement
“That wall,” Shawerim kindly explains, “prevents you from seeing. It prevents me from seeing too, but also from being seen.” Shawerim Coocoo in the documentary Le mur invisible (2020), by Laurence B. Lemaire
The frame is both a material and conceptual device that is used literally and metaphorically: it directs attention by demarcating the periphery of an image, blocking everything beyond it, or by designating the limits of a subject, power, or identity. In this sense, going beyond the frame is akin to coming out of the closet or breaking the glass ceiling. It means rejecting labels, models, and definitions in order to assert oneself and take one’s rightful place. Through photography, sculpture, performance, textiles, collage, and video, artists Lorna Bauer, Marie-Claire Blais, Nadège Grebmeier Forget, Alicia Henry, Tau Lewis, Michaëlle Sergile, and Eve Tagny each uniquely defy prescribed norms and conventions. Their works shift perspectives to engage with what lies beyond the frame. They resist the constraints that define the mental and physical spaces of those who identify as women. When confronting these works, we are invited to recognize the blind spots that underlie our own judgements—these “walls that prevent us from seeing”—and to rethink how others can be and present themselves as women. The esthetic strategies adopted by these artists go well beyond issues of representation to offer other formal and material explorations that express the pressures exerted on bodies that exist at the crossroads of multiple force fields.
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Works Exhibited (entrance + second floor) :
Il n’y a pas de sens ultime à l’intérieur de moi : An appearance of participation (2010-2021)
Works Exhibited (main floor) :
Wanton Pink
2020
Inkjet print on glossy photo paper, makeup
94 x 76.8 cm
Property of the artist
Libertine Blue
2020
Inkjet print on glossy photo paper, makeup
124.5 x 81.3 cm
Property of the artist
Nadège Grebmeier Forget is known for her performances that disrupt the normative behaviours that are associated with the traditional image of femininity. In parallel, she creates drawings, paintings, and collages using pages from fashion magazines, as seen in the two works presented here. Grebmeier Forget defaces the white models who pose before the camera by directly applying nail polish remover to her freshly printed photo enlargements. She first erases their features before “embellishing” them with makeup, which she applies with her fingers. The terminology of painting is in fact quite similar to the language of cosmetics; both deal with textures, pigments, colours, and reflections. Although makeup is primarily a medium, it is also a cultural practice with its own body language, which, reiterated and exaggerated here, is deeply inscribed in the works.
The result is a series of “damaged” portraits that manage to remain strangely seductive due to their colour palette and balanced composition. This ambiguous beauty reflects the negotiation that takes place during their production. Grebmeier Forget seems to challenge internalized reflexes by engaging in a physical confrontation with the images—a recurring strategy in her work. While the desire to please may be inseparable from the culture of cosmetics, here, their usual use is subverted. Rather than correcting flaws or highlighting certain features, the makeup floods the entire page, obliterating the models underneath. It’s as if Grebmeier Forget has lost herself in the sensual pleasure of manipulating a familiar medium and was unable to stop, thus derailing an otherwise expert choreography until it literally runs off the page.
Images : Paul Litherland