Sylvie Bouchard • Espaces de Paysages

Vernissage: Thurs. Jan. 9, 6 – 8 pm
Gallery tour: Thurs. Jan. 9, 5 – 6 pm
Art Hive: Sat. Jan. 25, 10 am – 4 pm + info
Exhibition: Jan. 10 to Feb. 1, 2020

Le lieu déserté n’est pas un simple lieu où il n’y aurait rien du tout. Pour donner l’évidence visuelle de l’absence, il faut le minimum d’une alliance symbolique ou de sa fiction […][1]

The McClure Gallery is pleased to present Sylvie Bouchard’s exhibition Espaces de paysages. Her paintings explore the context of different pictorial fictions which, beyond the represented elements (landscapes, architectural spaces, objects, characters…), carry a sense of strangeness. This element of strangeness results particularly from the juxtaposition of objects rather than from the subjects. Grounded in space, they offer different paths, leading to a dreamlike relationship with reality. These paintings simultaneously work through different approaches (figurative, matter related, symbolic…) and as such offer the observer an innovative experience. The position of the spectator and their point of view are explored through screens and painted structures set up in perspective. This set-up produces a particular topography where “the land” corresponds to place. Accumulated objects or motifs, born of disparate and incongruous situations, leave nest-like traces in the soil.

The painting Vers l’au-dehors (2019) illustrates her relationship with the Italian movement known as “metaphysical painting”. In this work, as in many others, there are various references to nature, linking to wilderness, the post-industrial era, the history of the representation of nature, fables and theatricality.

In her work, she emphasizes contrasts, playing with scale and distance; with the probable and improbable reversals that together create a terrain of variable configurations, inviting the spectator to linger on possible meanings.

Montreal artist Sylvie Bouchard was born in 1959. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions throughout Quebec, notably at the Musée régional de Rimouski, the Southern Alberta Art Gallery in Lethbridge and the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. She has taken part in in group exhibitions at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Saidye Bronfman Center, the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris, the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver, the Musée des Augustins in Toulouse, France, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Mons in Belgium.

Gallery Hours: Tuesday to Friday 12 pm to 6 pm; Saturday 12 pm to 5 pm

[1] Georges Didi-Huberman, L’homme qui marchait dans la couleur, Paris, Les éditions de Minuit, 2001, 93 pages; p.53