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September 10 – October 31, 2010
GILBERT POISSANT | EXHIBITION « LE JEU DU COLLECTIONNEUR »
OPENING | Friday September 10 at 5 PM
Honorary chair | Mr. Yvon Noël, MATERIA, Director, Educational Activities and Access to Culture, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec / Founder of Centre MATERIA
«The idea for this over-1,800 piece testimonial-work and personal inventory of the world came about 2005. Amid these themes and variations, two motifs run through the works of Poissant: time and memory (two sides of the same coin), and the artist-collector. » (Pascale Beaudet, art historian and independent curator)
Quebec, 15/09/2010 — From September 10 to October 31, 2010, MATERIA presents « Le jeu du collectionneur », a testimonial-work of Gilbert Poissant, an important ceramic artist in Province of Quebec.
Research and realisation of this masterpiece, a work centred on memory, time going and the constitution of a unique graphic language, took place over more than five years. “Le jeu du collectionneur” consists in four parts: La collection (The Collection), Le jeu (The Game), Shadows and Objets spécifiques (Specific Objects). The three first parts have been presented in 2007, 2008 and 2009. However, La collection as well as Le jeu have been modified and improved since. The fourth part, Objets spécifiques, is exclusivity and will be exposed at Centre MATERIA for the first time in September and October 2010.
La collection, a wall installation, composed by several hundred objects of wood amassed by the artist without precise purpose, established the beginning of this art work. The linear assembly, composed by forms and memories of all kinds, looks like a text that can be read at multiple degrees.
In Le jeu, the wall installation La collection has been transposed in a group of forms that evoked utopian towns. The artist’s interest for architecture is then realized through a playful purpose model. This model is a juxtaposition, which creates a fictive urban, poetic and visionary landscape, in the modernist architecture tradition.
In the third part of the art work, called Shadows, 600 silhouettes are creating an architectural frieze as well as an alphabet of forms and a signs language. Composing by 11 autonomous sections of 60 x 60 cm which form a whole, this part results from some recent technical researches. Indeed, this part has been realized by digital cuts and high pressure water jet, a technique of high precision that emphasizes and reinforces the graphic aspect of the art work.
Finally, the fourth part constitutes some representations, in the form of bas-reliefs, of certain objects of La collection.
For over thirty years, Poissant has been developing a practice anchored in the medium. His artistic process, always expressed with extraordinary consistency and exactness, is as vital in his objects, sculptures, and installations, as in the creation of architecturally integrated murals.
Marked by experimentation and research, his professional career has gained him extensive knowledge of materials and a rare mastery of technique, far exceeding the scope of ceramics. His art practice, thoroughly anchored in reality, offers us a very personal perspective on the world. Le jeu du collectionneur is a fine illustration of this.
His attentiveness to each of the objects is palpable. The artist takes us on a heady mix of assemblages, associations, and delicate balances. Relations of scale jostle one another, from the found object to ornaments, from architecture to cityscapes. There comes a time when the object that penetrates us through the senses eventually develops into a presence laden with memories. All Poissant’s work is part of this slow transition between the dazzling and masterful gesture and the timeless moment of emotion. »
Alongside the exhibition Le jeu du collectioneur, MATERIA, the only center of artists and crafts broadcast in Canada, has produced a publication in partnership with Éditions Varia. This publication, noting in passing the ten year history of the Center MATERIA is abundantly illustrated and additional information are substantial, both in French and English. This publication is also the way to seize the impact of Gilbert Poissant’s testimonial work.
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MATERIA is an artist-run centre in the field of handcrafted art objects whose mandate is to disseminate and promote artistic enquiry and creation both nationally and abroad.
Maison des métiers d’art de Québec | Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec
Société de développement des entreprises culturelles | Ville de Québec | Emploi-Québec | Conseil des métiers d'art du Québec | Conseil des Arts du Canada
MATERIA thanks Maison des métiers d’art de Québec for financial support. The Maison des métiers d'art de Québec, a school of applied arts, offers course options in ceramics, textile design and sculpture. Centre MATERIA thankswww.mmaq.com
Source : Caroline Chabot, chargée de projets, Centre MATERIA | (418) 524-0354, ext. 249 | cchabot@centremateria.com | www.centremateria.com | galerie 395, boul. Charest Est, Québec (Qc) | bureaux 367, boul. Charest Est, 7e étage, Québec (Qc) G1K 3H3 CANADA
BIOGRAPHY
Born in Iberville, Quebec, in 1952, Gilbert Poissant divides his time between Mont-Saint-Hilaire and Montreal. He is a multidisciplinary artist who expresses himself mainly through sculpture, installation, and ceramic murals. His work has been shown in Quebec, in Canada, and abroad. Recognized for his contribution to public art, he created several architecturally integrated works, closely aligned with his personal artistic development as manifest in his exhibitions in galleries, art centres and museums.
In 1999, Poissant won a national competition to create artwork to adorn the École nationale d’administration publique in Quebec City. Since 1983 he has also produced many murals, including that of the Outremont metro station, the École de technologie supérieure in Montreal, and Université de Montréal’s faculty of veterinary medicine in Saint-Hyacinthe. His works are in numerous private and public collections, including the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Musee d’art contemporain de Montréal, and the Canadian Clay and Glass Gallery in Waterloo, Ontario. He was appointed a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2003.
Key exhibitions marking Poissant’s thirty-year career include Le jeu du collectionneur, presented at Circa in 2008 and at Maison de la culture Côte-des-Neiges in 2009, a body of work composed of three installations and inspired by a collection of over 600 wooden objects amassed over several decades. Also worth mentioning are Architectures intimes, presented in 2007 at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, Saskatchewan, and at Surrey Art Gallery, British Columbia, Arrêt sur espace, at Centre d’exposition en art actuel Plein sud and Musée des beaux-arts de Mont-Saint-Hilaire in 2001, 5 fois 2 temps, at Expression, in Saint-Hyacinthe, and in several other Quebec exhibition centres in 1997, Jardin de tessons, at Musée de Lachine in 1995, and finally, Céramique et architecture, an exhibition he presented as a guest artist for the 6th Biennale nationale de céramique de Trois-Rivières in 1994.
In 2007, Gilbert Poissant was invited to create a permanent work, on site, for the FuLe International Ceramic Art Museums (FLICAM) in Fuping, China. He was also invited to participate in the 2005 international symposium Barro de America, held in Venezuela. He is regularly accepted in numerous artist-inresidence programs, at home and abroad.
For more information about this artist and this exhibition:
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