GALERIE ST-LAURENT + HILL {blog}

We’ve had a great turnout over the past 11 days for our Isabelle Gauvreau exhibition. We encourage those of you who have not yet visited to come by 293 Dalhousie Street, Ottawa to see the beautiful symbolic & figurative work of this vibrant artist. 

Gallery St-Laurent + Hill is pleased to welcome 8 talented new artists to our ever expanding roster. We invite you to scroll below to see more, and to visit us at 293 Dalhousie St. in Ottawa…

Michel Harvey (Montreal)

Homme à tête de clou - Nails, Street Trash, Recycled Paint + Wood - 2011

Born in Quebec City, Michel settled in Montreal where he studied fine arts at the University of Québec a Montreal (UQAM). For many years, clay was his material of choice. For the past two years, he has passionately devoted himself to creating works of art that have received attention from art critics and the public alike.

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Geneviève Thauvette

Funerailles - 30x20”. Hand-tinted digital c-print, 2009

Genevieve Thauvette is an Ottawa-based creative photographer. Her notable works include “The Dionne Quintuplets” (2009)   and “Beheld: Iconic Self-Portraits.”(2008). Thauvette is also the recipient of the Gold Medal at the 2009 Jeux de la Francophonie, Lebanon, in the photography category.   She currently resides in Ottawa.

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Eryn O’Neill

DomusCafe - 24” x 48”, Oil on Canvas - 2011

Artist’s Statement:

For the past few years my work has been primarily based on architectural and industrial sites. I have explored a variety of places ranging from more heavily industrial locations including oil refineries, cargo ship ports, and construction sites to more architectural such as suburban housing developments and city storefronts. Common elements in the works are a minimal use of recognizable objects and landmarks as well as a lack of actual people in predominantly man-made structural settings. It allows the viewer to interpret the pieces from their own perspective, while still remaining an inactive participant.

I currently work as a full-time artist in Ottawa where I maintain a studio space in the city.

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Sarah Hatton

Shore 1. Oil and resin on panel, 30” x 48” 2011

Artist’s Statement:

There cannot be a sense of longing without loss.
 
These paintings are my mental snapshots of a place in time.  As soon as the moment becomes past tense, it imprints itself in my mind as black and white: certainty. From that point on, the moment erodes, degrades, grey areas infiltrate and memory kicks in.  Extremes stay at the surface, but colors lose their vividness, perspectives are altered and cropped, and details fade, or are edited away.
 
Like a remembered conversation, I fill in the missing spaces, disregard the parts that don’t meet my present needs and construct an entity that feels comfortable, like home.
 
There cannot be a sense of longing without loss, whether for a place or person that can never be recaptured in time. These paintings preserve a tension between the sweetness of being in the moment, and a raw sense of longing for what it used to be. 

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Susan Szenes 

Send Name and Address - 45” x 45” - Mixed Media on Panel, 2011

Susan Szenes is a Toronto artist, who grew up in the suburbs of Willowdale, escaped with friends to endless after school travels through the parks, playgrounds and ravines of her neighbourhood. Susan’s early years were fascinated with comics, cars, music and punk culture, she transitioned into a high school student experimenting with collage and old-school style cut and paste zines. Susan’s earliest influence was her dad, Andras Szenes, who gave her the introduction to tools and recycling materials. Father and daughter often working huddled together in the suburban garage, refurbishing brass fittings as he relayed his stories.

Szenes’ career has progressed with exhibitions in New York, San Francisco, Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax and Toronto. Her work has been appropriately selected for the cover of Coach House Books’ publication Utopia: State of the Arts, as well in the collections of the City of Toronto and the Toronto Pearson International Airport.

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Julie Liger-Belair

Divine Twins - 9” x 8” - Mixed Media - 2008

Artist Statement:

Fairy tales, legends, dreams and the surreal worlds they evoke have always been a part of the human experience; a way to make sense of our surroundings and explain our fears. As a child these captured my imagination, weaving themselves into the fabric of my personality. Because of this I am today a collector at heart, constantly collecting fragments of ideas and objects, each with their own little stories to tell. Combining them in different ways in assemblage pieces, they form new narratives and meanings.

I create mixed-media works using paint, wood, papier-mâché, polymer
clay, metal and found objects. They often feature Victorian era photographs I’ve collected over the years, finding that these, in of themselves, evoke imagined histories and feelings of nostalgia. Their serious and stern faces provide an ironic counterpoint to the humor and levity I try to inject into the work. Alternatively, my pieces make evident a playful fascination with all forms of iconography, creating alter-pieces for everyday life, making sacred of the mundane.

In my latest work I’ve been attempting to combine these vernaculars – the ironic and the sacred – to tell a story about the disconnect between our private and public selves. That is, who we are is often at odds with what we project to others. What do we choose to reveal, conceal or fabricate? More importantly, I explore the toll exacted by this ‘duplicity:’ specifically the feelings of sorrow, resentment, anxiety and martyrdom it engenders.

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Karen Bell

Untitled - Mixed Media on Paper - 12” x 12” - 2010

Karin Bell explores the discourse that occurs between the work and the artist. By allowing paint to transform the surface of her canvas, she gives voice to it. From there, the dialogue begins: by adding, subtracting, scratching, and mark-making, the story reveals itself.
As the dialogue between the work and the artist ensues, Bell builds on the integrity of this organically-driven approach to create a visual vocabulary that captures felt experience and speaks to universal truths.