Tourbières

 -Gallery I-

Isabelle Demers

Tourbières

Isabelle Demers’ exhibition Tourbières at Circa presents her new work, combining ceramics, drawing and greenery, among other things. The wildness of nature with its arabesques has freely inspired the coloured works that stem from sources such as fantasy tales and Victorian era curiosity cabinets, while verging on Art Nouveau ornamentation. Elements of various tropical, boreal, volcanic and aquatic ecosystems are skillfully mixed together in an installation that teems with abundance throughout the gallery.

The atmosphere here gives an impression of greenhouse humidity, idyllic strangeness, dreamlike symbolism, even an aura of other-worldliness. Transposed into textures, colours and atmospheres, the reference to Mother Earth’s Plantasia (Mort Garson, 1976), electronic music for indoor plants, lays the foundations for a phosphorescent, iridescent and exuberant delusion, where reinvented plant species proliferate as ceramics, on tiles and on paper.

The earth-fire-water composition, necessary for the production of ceramics and even for the existence of plants, plays the role of linking the various installation elements, from the organic to the mineral. Demers’ approach to ceramics is similar to the Portuguese azulejos technique, which consists of a set of decorated earthenware tiles. Drawings of scenes of a fantastic exoticism, all in camouflage, unfold on dozens of tiles arranged on the walls.

Among the represented creatures, a feline, birds, insects and amphibians are added to the immersive scene, while a source of water flows and real plants grow here over time, bringing movement and life to the immutable forms frozen in ceramics. With a calm that is soothing yet disturbing, the installation nevertheless imitates hostile terrain and embodies a mutant zone, where patient visitors will be able to come to grips with the details of rare specimens available for observation.

Modern science and its methods of empirical exploration, data collection and analysis, bring an air of realism to the artist’s resolutely free interpretations of pristine nature. While the recent discovery of an exceptional new fossil of Elpistostege enables the unveil to be lifted on the origin of tetrapods, the Tourbières installation presents hydride species and raises questions: fish with feet or quadrupeds with fins? A few hidden clues suggest that Isabelle Demers may not take us elsewhere, but a few million years back in our evolution.

         – Text by  Mariane Tremblay

Artist biography 

Isabelle Demers lives and works in Quebec City and holds a master’s degree in visual arts from Laval University. Her artistic activities revolve around the practice of drawing, sculpture and installation. She has exhibited her work in various solo and group exhibitions and events in Quebec and internationally, including at L’Œil de Poisson (Quebec), the Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides (St-Jérôme), Langage Plus (Alma) and during the Flow event at the Seaport Museum (Philadelphia). And for her exhibition Lourd comme un cheval mort at La Chambre Blanche, she received the Prix Videre. Since 2018, she also has created public art works as part of the duo Demers-Mesnard. In 2021, her work will be presented in two solo exhibitions, one at Circa in Montréal and the other at Centre d’exposition Raymond-Lasnier in Trois-Rivières.

Author Biography 

Mariane Tremblay, holding a MA and a BA in art from Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, expresses her reflections on the visual arts through art making and writing. In addition to her studio practice, her writing on art has been published in various forms such as micro-editions, visual art centre publications, art magazines and artists’ projects. She has participated in residencies and events, and her art works have been presented in numerous exhibitions throughout Quebec and are in private and public art collections. Being particularly sensitive to the fabulous strangeness in variations of perception and to mysteries that are beyond comprehension, she has developed an aesthetic around rarity and the unique. In her artmaking, research and writing, she experiments with the state of wonder in a protean way. Immersed in the Jeannoise countryside where she grew up, Mariane lives and works in both Saguenay and Alma.

Meeting with the artiste, on Saturday June 19th form noon to 5 !