Unknown Destinations | Laura Demers

About

The unusual details that linger in thoughts of place – an odd morsel of texture, a peculiar colour, a curious snippet of foliage – evoke scenes that entirely displace the viewer. Demers plays with an illusion of vertigo, foregoing the horizon in her painted worlds.

In UNKNOWN DESTINATIONS, Laura Demers interprets photographic collage in painting. Landscapes are fragmented, suggesting space that is askew in memory. The unusual details that linger in thoughts of place – an odd morsel of texture, a peculiar colour, a curious snippet of foliage – evoke scenes that entirely displace the viewer. Demers plays with an illusion of vertigo, foregoing the horizon in her many painted worlds.

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"Unknown Destinations speaks about the land, and illustrates how one may envision and experience it, physically, psychologically and metaphorically. The viewer travels into a surreal, deserted, yet lush universe that is vibrant with movement and vivid colour. Unknown Destinations provides an escape from our habitual environment, and yet questions its own persistence and reality. In the depicted scenes, the wilderness is in a state of turmoil, upheaval, disruption. The land is fragmented, abstracted; the view is obstructed, often obliterated. There is no oasis. The prolific vegetation and dense atmosphere in the vistas and panoramas is deception, phantasmagoria. That is in part what my work addresses: the process of transforming, unearthing, and bringing improbable images to life, through painting." - Laura Demers

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LAURA DEMERS is a painter and collage artist who grew up in Wendover, Ontario. She received her B.F.A. from the University of Ottawa in 2015. Demers was the 2014 recipient of the Michael Burgess scholarship, and selected drawings made her the winner of the Gunter Nolte scholarship in 2014 and 2015. She has recently received the Edmund & Isobel Ryan Visual Arts Scholarship in Painting. Her collages and paintings have been shown at Paradigm[e] Gallery, Studio Sixty Six, Gallery 115, and Art Mur. Demers’ work explores conundrums of surface and space in painting and the various ways through which the medium can act as a filter for our vision of the world.