Véronique Chagnon Côté and Élise Lafontaine
February 25 - April 7, 2023
Opening Reception February 25 @ 1-4PM
Artist Talks March 23 @ 6PM online. Click here to join.
Exhibition Essay by Tatum Dooley. Available online here.
Sous ses yeux de pierre is an exhibition of the work of Véronique Chagnon Côté and Élise Lafontaine. The two painters propose a reflexion about our relationship with space. If the first gesture from architectural space is to welcome our body, how is it experienced? Through metaphorical reflection, their work combines desires and visions of architecture to producing representations of places lived, dreamed or speculated.
- Text by the artists from original French translation
Véronique Chagnon Côté (b.1986) lives and works in Montreal. She is a professor at University of Quebec in Montreal and holds a master's degree in Studio Art from Concordia University (2016). Her research in painting focuses explorations of the phenomenology of our perception of space. She uses her lived experience of architecture and nature as a raw material to build up settings in pictorial scenes. These works were featured in solo exhibitions at Occurence (2022), Projet Casa and FOFA gallery in Montreal (2020), at Zalucky Contemporary in Toronto (2016), Circa Gallery in Montréal (2016), as well as several collective exhibitions such as Material Remains at Young Space (NY, E.-U. 2021) and 3D at Alfa Gallery in Miami (2019). She was the recipient of the Elizabeth Greendshields Foundation (2020) and the Dale and Nick Tedeschi Studio Arts Fellowship (2014-2015). Her work was published in VAST Magazine (2021) and Friend of the Artist (2020). Her work is found in public collections, Prêt d’oeuvres d’art Collection of Museum of Fine Arts of Québec City, Art Contemporary Collection of City Hall Gallery of Ottawa, as well of numerous private collections.
Élise Lafontaine (Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, Canada) holds a master’s degree in visual and media arts from the Université du Québec à Montréal (2020) and a BFA from Concordia University (2015). She has participated in artist residencies at the Fondation Christoph Merian / CALQ and Malévoz Quartier culturel (Switzerland), at the Vermont Studio Center (United States), and at the Leipzig International Art Programme (Germany). Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Sothu Zurich (Switzerland), at Pangée and Galerie Nicolas Robert (Canada), and in group exhibitions (Centre Clark, Fondation Rad Hourani, McBride Contemporain, Maison de la culture du Plateau‑Mont‑Royal, Usine C, Galerie Art Mûr, Leipzig Spinnerei Autumn Gallery Tour). Her next solo will be presented at Centre CLARK in Montreal with guest curator Marie DuPasquier (Switzerland). CLARK will publish next April her first publication on her site-specific work. Lafontaine is represented by Pangée.