Chiguer Contemporary Art is honored to present PACKAGES, a solo exhibition by Gilles Mihalcean. A major figure in Canadian sculpture spanning more than fifty years of creative work, the artist is recognized for his significant contribution to the revival of sculpture in the 1980s in Canada, as well as his influence on several generations of artists.
In PACKAGES, a garden of symbolic sculptures unfolds within the gallery space, each work presenting itself as a visual metaphor to be deciphered. Poetic and narrative, Mihalcean’s inventive constructions, created through the assembly of sculpted representations of various shapes and everyday objects, stimulate the imagination and a sense of play. By diverting them from their usual function, the artist challenges the viewer’s perceptions and creates a space of freedom and escape conducive to the creation of new narratives. As the narrative character of his works is deliberately undefined, ambiguous, and open-ended, the possibilities for interpretation are virtually endless.
In this new production, dialogues are woven between elements of everyday life and scientific, technological, and cosmic representations. Yet, a striking organicity emerges from this unlikely amalgam between the contingent and the ontological, the terrestrial and the celestial, humankind and space. Indeed, this imagery weaves deep philosophical and spiritual reflections, as well as emotional, social and poetic ones. They reflect considerations specific to Quebec culture, but also the artist’s preoccupations, both intimate and universal. Mihalcean thus invites us to meditate on the nature of the human being, the profound meaning of life, and our place, however small, in the vastness of the universe.
The work Fleur-larme pour Marie centers around emotions associated with grief and loss, standing as a tribute to Marie, the artist’s late wife. Through this work, Mihalcean reflects the existential and spiritual questions that arise from the disappearance of a loved one. Symbols relating to humanity and the cosmos are superimposed. Here, a human femur is grafted onto an astral body housing a crystal ball, revealing an inverted vision of the world. Crowning this celestial body, a molecular representation of a water droplet symbolizes a tear. This vital element establishes a link between Man, Earth, and the universe. With this creation, Gilles Mihalcean probes the profound and unresolved mystery of life and death.
With La goutte, the artist refers to the growing intolerance and tensions that ripple through our modern societies. This piece serves as a symbolic representation of the French expression “la goutte qui fait déborder le vase”, directly translated to “the drop that makes the vase overflow”, or, in its idiomatic English counterpart, “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. This work depicts a giant droplet flowing from a brimming bucket, sweeping away in its tumultuous path everything mankind has built, cities, and villages alike, plunged into the abyss.
In a different spirit, in Tête de Robert Lepage, Gilles Mihalcean renews the academic tradition of sculpted portraiture and engages in a dialogue with the history of sculpture and the tradition of the commemorative bust.
With this non-figurative bust of a key personality in Quebec’s cultural landscape, the artist pays tribute to him, once again expressing his fascination and attachment to Quebec’s popular culture.
Following in the footsteps of avant-garde sculptors such as Constantin Brancusi and Jean Arp, Mihalcean breaks with the traditional conventions of the sculptural bust, rooted in mimetic figuration. He adopts a poetic and narrative approach to represent his subjects, bringing together a set of symbolic elements associated with them. In the absence of identifiable facial features, the sculptor leads us to reflect on the symbolic significance of these characters, and what they inspire in us, both on an individual and collective level. In Tête de Robert Lepage, the bronze part suggests, by its shape, the upper part of a skull, or a wig, a possible abstract representation of Lepage’s creative and visionary genius. The crater-punctuated bronze surface could be a subtle allusion to one of his most famous works: La Face cachée de la Lune (Far Side of the Moon).
