Chiguer art contemporain is pleased to present F.UTILIS, an immersion in Claudie Gagnon’s enthralling universe, where the marvellous and the ordinary, the useful and the futile, converge with brilliance. In this new body of work, Claudie Gagnon explores textiles while continuing her work on suspension.
Displaying exceptional craftsmanship and a resolutely obsessive attention to detail, the artist has once again produced extremely delicate hanging pieces using objects found at second-hand shops. Through her masterful art of accumulation and misappropriation, Claudie becomes an alchemist of the contingent.
Steeped in references to the history of art and harbouring hidden symbolisms, Claudie Gagnon’s works gradually reveal their full density. In F.UTILIS, the artist takes her inspiration from the banners of mortuary processions to revisit the pictorial genre of the vanitas. Rooted in the still-life tradition, the vanitas highlights the fragility of existence through a codified iconography of hidden symbolisms. Insects, snakes, flowers, mirrors and human skulls are all references to the ephemeral and transitory nature of life. Reappropriated by the artist, these symbols evoke the emptiness of our consumerist societies and offer the viewer a meditation on his or her own end.
A major figure on the Quebec actual art scene, Claudie Gagnon, recycles and reuses objects of common use, concepts, famous works of art history as well as visual and sound imprints that are an integral part of our scholarly and popular culture. Playful and poetic, her multidisciplinary work unfolds in many forms: installations, living paintings, theatrical interventions, videos, photos, food art, etc. and leaves an indelible mark in the minds of those who experience it.
Spreading over more than 30 years her artistic journey includes multiple exhibitions and museums, artists centres and festivals in Quebec as well as internationally. Her artworks are part of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, the Musée d’art de Joliette and of Loto-Québec collections. She has also designed and created projects within the integration to architecture and environment Quebec provincial government policy at Robert Lepage’s Diamant theatre in Quebec City, at the Musée d’art de Joliette, at Le Carré 150 in Victoriaville and the Monique-Corriveau Library in Quebec City.
