ALT-

About

Galerie Robertson Arès is pleased to present ALT-, a group exhibition which will showcase a selection of recent works by artists Hiva Alizadeh (Iran), François Arès (Canada), Sydney Blum (Canada), Christophe Delbeecke (Belgium), Troy Emery (Australia), Emily Filler (Canada), Sébastien Gaudette (Canada), Andrée-Anne Mercier (Canada), Douglas Scholes (Canada), Derrick Velasquez (United States), and François Vincent (Canada).

The term ALT denotes a version of something that is intended as a challenge to the traditional version. Short for alternative, which is ultimately derived from the Latin word alter, meaning « other », alt refers to the unusual. This show is intended as a celebrates of peculiarity in all its weirdness and glory.

ALT- will be on view from June 11th to August 6th, 2022. Details regarding an opening event will be announced at a later date.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS
HIVA ALIZADEH - Hiva Alizadeh (b. 1989 in Tehran, Iran) is an abstract multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Iran. Self-trained, he firstembarked on his artistic journey as an experimental filmmaker before turning to sculpture and installation, practices which quickly took over as the lion’s share of his activities. The space between painting and sculpture represents a continuous source of enchantment, inspiration and reflexion for Alizadeh. The hair, as though a remainder of a living creature, is the medium by which he creates works that are neither painting nor sculpture, but rather something in between and reminiscent of both disciplines.

FRANÇOIS ARÈS - François Arès (b. 1979, Edmonton) is a visual artist based in Montréal, Québec. He holds Bachelor’s degrees from McGill University in History, Psychology and Education. He has sailed around the world on a tall-ship, mushed in dog-sled races and tramped across volcanoes in New Zealand; all of which has given him a diverse set of skills. His artistic practice explores various mediums and techniques, looking to challenge perceptions of time, history, play and the objective gaze. He is a founding member of the Something Group.

SYDNEY BLUM - Sydney Blum (b. 1950, Oneida) is an artist living and working in Nova Scotia. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and a Master of Social Work from New York University. Her work has been widely reviewed in art publications such as Art Forum, Art News, Art in America, The New York Times, Sculpture Magazine, Contemporanea, Arts Magazine, Village Voice and many others. Blum has been the recipient of two Creation Grants through Arts Nova Scotia since moving there in 2010. She has taught in the Fine Art department at The New School/Parsons for 16 years and practiced as a psychotherapist for more than 30 years. Her artistic practiceisinspiredbyphenomenasuchascolourvibrations, theoscillationoflight,seismology,and ways that energy is experienced and measured.

CHRISTOPHE DELBEECKE - Christophe Delbeecke (b. 1975, Menin) is a sculptor based in Belgium. In 2015 he joined the department of ceramics at the Academy of Fine Art in Ypres to explore the technical boundaries of clay and its baking process. It is those limitations that made him transfer to the sculpture department, where he furthered his research of new materials and techniques. Delbeecke toys with everyday objects, removing them from their habitual banality. Juxtaposing sharp aggressive objects to fragile billowy forms, the artist creates a paradox that playfully disturbs our brain’s preconceived notions.

TROY EMERY - Troy Emery (b. 1981, Roma Queensland) is an artist based in Melbourne whose art practice encompasses sculpture, painting, and drawing. He works primarily with textiles in a sculptural practice to produce animal-like forms. Emery’s pieces can be found in various private and public collections, including The National Gallery of Victoria, The Art Bank Australia Collection, The City of Townsville Art Collection, The Goulburn Regional Art Gallery Collection, The Deakin Art Museum, and The Macquarie University Art Gallery. His artwork examines the discourse surrounding the delineation between fine arts and craft, as well as animals as both entrenched decorative motifs and tokens of ecological ruination.

EMILY FILLER - Emily Filler (b. 1982, Ottawa) is a visual artist based in Toronto, Ontario. She earned her BachelorofFineArtwithHonoursfromQueen’sUniversity,inKingston,Ontario. Herworkhasbeen widely shown in solo exhibitions across Canada, the United States and the united Kingdom. It can also be found in private and corporate collections worldwide. Filler’s paintings walk the line between the real and the imaginary. There is a sense of the familiar but also the feeling that you are falling into a dream - flowers act as a departure point to a world that dissolves into abstraction. She weaves together painting, printmaking and photography in her ‘painterly collages’, bringing together panels of colour, meticulous patterning and floral elements. Dense mark-making contrasts with airy clouds of transparent colour and screen-printed florals reveal themselves from behind cut and torn paper and canvas. As these processes and elements interlace, they create a hybrid between representation and abstraction.

SÉBASTIEN GAUDETTE - Sébastien Gaudette (born 1984 in Montreal) is a native of Montreal, where he lives and works. After obtaining a Bachelor of Fine and Media Arts from Université du Québec à Montréal, he began a serious research on the medium of paper, exploring the multiple forms and facets of its crumpling, of which he produced perfect trompe-l'oeil through drawing, writing and sculpture. His works have been the subject of many solo exhibitions across Quebec, notably at the Museums of Fine Arts of Sherbrooke, the Museum of Fine Arts of Mont-Saint-Hilaire, the Musée du Bas-Saint-Laurent, the Jonquière National Exhibition Center, the Cirque du Soleil, as well as in several Maison de la culture in Montreal. Gaudette also took part in charitable events, including the auction of the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal and that of the Musée d'art contemporain des Laurentides. On the international scene, he has been invited to exhibit at the Art Helix Gallery in Brooklyn, in addition to having his work presented at various international fairs, including Art on Paper in Miami, Seattle Art Fair, and the Papier fair in Montreal. The artist has also completed a number of research residencies in Canada and the United States which have allowed him to explore his creative process in different contexts.

ANDRÉE-ANNE MERCIER - Andrée-Anne Mercier (b. 1992, Repentigny) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Montreal, Quebec. A graduate of the Université du Québec à Montréal and holder of a D.E.S.S diploma in Arts, Creation and Technology from the Université de Montréal, he artistic practice explores several modes of expression, including painting, video games, sculpture, installation art, 3D modelling and animation. For close to 10 years now, Mercier has been participating in various artistic events both in Quebec and internationally, most notably in Japan, where she completed two artist residencies. Tinted by Japanese pop-culture and retro movements, her work subtly questions the evolution of mass culture throughout time as well as the sense of nostalgia associated to it.

DOUGLAS SCHOLES - Douglas Scholes (b. 1962, Montréal) is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Montréal, Québec. Scholes’ work has a pragmatic basis and often uses poetic, ludic and seemingly futile processes and materials to address the fragile and changing nature of our intrinsic need to maintain the condition of things. The essential ideas reveal optimism, conviviality, empathy, familiarity that intersects with dormant, unsaid, unnoticed everyday things and experiences. His projects can take the form of sculpture, performance walks, videos and photography, using easily accessible materials, including beeswax, as a metaphor for nature of the condition of things.

DERRICK VELASQUEZ - Derrick Velasquez (b. 1982, Lodi) is a multidisciplinary artist and curator based in Denver, Colorado. He holds a BFA in Studio Art and a BA in Art History from the University of California, Santa Barbara, as well as an MFA from The Ohio State University. His work places sculpture and installation in dialogue with architecture and design. Through observation and research, he revisits common and traditional construction materials and ornamental elements so as to parody their bourgeois aesthetics and tropes. In 2017, Velasquez was awarded the prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant for Painters and Sculptors. In 2019, he was the recipient of the MacDowell Colony Fellowship. In recent years, his work has been showcased in solo exhibition at The Herron School of Art and Design, The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, The Black Cube Nomadic Museum, and the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art. Velasquez also had group shows at Transmitter and Flowers Gallery, both located in New York City, as well as at The Frame Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University. In addition to his artistic practice, Derrick Velasquez runs Yes Ma’am Projects, an initiative aimed at supporting and promoting the work of contemporary artists in Colorado.

FRANÇOIS VINCENT - A native of Montreal, François Vincent received a bachelor’s degree in linguistics in 1972 and another one in fine arts in 1974 from Université du Québec à Montréal. He is a pioneer in contemporary printmaking within the Atelier Circulaire collective, and his works have appeared around the world (Argentina, Canada, Spain, United States, France, Japan, and Portugal). Winner of the 1990 Grand Prix Loto-Québec Printmaking Competition and the 1997 Prix Jacques-Cartier des Arts, François Vincent has been a featured artist in many private and public collections : the Canada Council Art Bank, the National Bank of Canada, Loto-Québec, Musée national des Beaux-arts du Québec, and Musée d’Art contemporain de Montréal. His works are also displayed in public venues thanks to the Politique d’Intégration des Arts à l’Architecture program, in particular to the Institute of Cardiology of Montreal and more recently, in the new Research Center of the CHUM. Vincent is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.