Aurélie Blanchette Dubois

Moistest Sade of Thou I, II & III, 2023;
Inkjet printed textiles, beads;
118 1/10 × 39 2/5 in | 300 × 100 cm 

The Poster Child Of Morphostasis, 2019;
Oil on canvas; 
46 9/10 × 33 1/10 in | 119 × 84 cm

Mala at Material Vol. 9, 08.02.23 - 12.02.23

Mala’s presentation at Material Vol. 9 proposes a dialogue between Swiss-Canadian emerging artist Aurélie Blanchette Dubois and Portuguese artist Sara Graça.

The gallery presented works from the series Leaden Nights (2022) by Sara Graça, that portray nights of worry converted into memories, or thoughts that do not let you sleep. Through modeling the pieces in air-dry paste, the artist creates a light-shadow relationship that gives shape to the works distributed on the wall with a graphite finish, which gives them the appearance of lead.

By working with a material that pretends to resemble another, and playing with its inauthenticity, a feeling of in-between spaces is created. We recognize a certain relationship with domesticity in these pieces that resemble medieval engravings, where there are figurative elements that transport us into the night.

Aurélie Blanchette Dubois presents The Poster Child of Morphostasis (2019), a series of oil paintings on canvas using pipe and hose images, clipart icons and liquid splashes in a range of interior design color palette. The mere surface of the paintings becomes the expression of the pipes as defunct vessels. Exploring the limits of the ornamental against the imperative of meaning production or the institution of good taste. The Moistest Shade of Thou I & II (2023), a new series of textile pieces, integrates visual references to water, hoses, electric lights, and human hands weaved in patterns as if they were form a hidden narrative.

The works were presented together, in a display that suggests open curtains or stained glass windows, and a view towards a room, recalling compositions from Flemish painting, underlining the narrative and imaginative qualities of each artists’ practice.

Moistest Shade of Thou

Modes of existence and interaction between humans and objects are what is at the source of my interest for the decorative function and its ideological imprint. Images as ornaments encrypt meaning and value into the fabric of an object and stimulate an interpassive relationship with its owners which equates to a linguistic of alchemistic properties. As textile sculptures, the three panels of digitally printed fabric may refer to a living room curtain. Each of the panels are composed of different series of scavenged images representing fictive elemental categories : suspension and table lamps, gardening hoses, water and human hands. These symbols are virtually and materially woven into intricate grid patterns loosely inspired from jacquard, argyle and tartan tradition. “The Moistest Shade of Thou” is a sort of omen to the fragility of the interdependent connections between the self and its material reality.

Photos : Beatriz Pereira

Who Framed Perpetual Bliss ? at Mala, 30.04.21 - 19.06.21

The exhibition brings together the film What Exceeds (2020) and a series of textile sculptures, Conforama Balling (2021) and Meltdown Birthing (2021), produced specifically for Mala’s exhibition space.

What Exceeds is a short fiction film shown on a vertical screen where is observed a group of young adults operating a shift in their existential quest – a sort of strategic withdrawal that consist of acting in a simulacrum of professionalism. Recognizing the inherent demands of power and negotiation dynamics to defend themselves or to exercise any form of resistance, they create their community and engage in an electrical wiring practice. Flirting with the aesthetic codes of the fashion and music industry, the video and the sculptures evoke the impression of a schizophrenic state between sincerity and cynicism as the simultaneous imperatives of mainstream popular culture.

The installation of the textile pieces together with the hanging lights fixtures expand the imaginary of the film into materials. Made from a digital collage of stock images and fictitious newspaper clips printed on mesh fabric, the curtain and the soft balls scattered in the space are reminiscent of a showroom or a vacant playground. The pattern combines images of body parts with others of sewers, spilling canales and garden hoses arranged in ornamental compositions. There is a tone of nostalgia to the fashion and ideological trend displayed in the objects, a suggestion of a bygone era of future-oriented interior decoration as a class achievement.

What Exceeds, 2020, essai-fiction, 23min, HD numérique, couleur, son;

video assistant : Virginia Garra; music: Nelson
Schaub; performers: Lauren Agbayani, Elliott Blackstar Jaguarr, Phoebe-Lin Elnan, Doris Hardeman, Juliet Lakhdari, David
Sentkar et Gabriel Shield-Hanau;

Centre d’art contemporain, Geneva, CH

What Exceeds at Lemaniana, Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève

What Exceeds is a 23 minutes short fiction film shown on a vertical screen. A group of young adults are portrayed who, deploying a sort of strategic withdrawal from their existential quest, have decided to become professional electicians. Recognizing the demands inherent in the dynamics of power and negotiation to defend themselves or exert any form of resistance, they create their community and engage in a practice of electrical wiring. Aurélie Blanchette Dubois' film is based around the desire to explore the connection of praxis and the mechanisms of definition of social, individual and collective units, and to experiment with the bonds of mutual dependence in a context of a constant flux of media and political discourses and a certain posture towards utopia. Flirting with the aesthetic codes of the fashion and music industry, the artist seeks to evoke the impression of a schizophrenic state between sincerity and cynicism, like the simultaneous imperatives of the dominant popular culture. For either the individual or the collective, the fiction asks what remains insoluble when contrasting conflicting needs : for control and liberation, confinement and evacuation.

https://vimeo.com/484843730

Bourses Déliées 2020 at Halle Nord, Genève, 09.10.2020 - 01.11.2020

Depuis de nombreuses années, le Fonds cantonal d’art contemporain offre des bourses réservées aux jeunes créatrices et créateurs issu.e.s de la Haute école d’art et de design dans l’année qui suit leur diplôme.

A l’issue d’un concours, les artistes plasticien.ne.s ou designers sélectionné.e.s peuvent ainsi réaliser un projet personnel de recherche, et le diffuser par le bais d’une exposition et d’une édition dont la conception graphique a été confiée cette année à Emilie Excoffier.

Les travaux des lauréat.e.s en Arts visuels sont présentés chaque automne à Halle Nord, et mis en scène par les artistes en dialogue étroit avec Carole Rigaut, directrice artistique.

Parmi les diplômé.e.s 2019 de la HEAD – Genève, un jury spécifique a retenu les projets suivants : Tomas Baumgartner, Brigida Bocini, Virginie Descamps & Nicolas Mazzi, Aurélie Blanchette Dubois, Juliette Gampert, Douna Lim & Théo Pesso, Gabriel Nunige, Paulo Wirz


https://vimeo.com/484843730