2021 exhibitions

February 25 to April 11, 2021

Artist tours: Sunday, March 14 at 2 pm and 3 pm
All visitors must pre-book preferred tour timeslot on Eventbrite.
Free admission. Presented in English.

Please check the latest Ottawa Public Health safety guidelines prior to your visit.

Exhibition booklet [ PDF - 8.5 MB ]

Exhibition video

To create the characters in The little prince, Paluzzi’s body was 3D-scanned by one hundred and thirty cameras. The digital textures of his skin were then manipulated and morphed into the seven characters. Once the figures were finished digitally, they were 3D-printed in sandstone and photographed in Paluzzi’s studio. These figures reference the illustrations in The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, which features a young boy exploring the universe. Along the way he meets narrow-minded adults and discovers that wisdom does not come with age.

Much older than the little prince, Paluzzi is simultaneously the narrator of his own story – though an unreliable one – and a character whom he controls. The act of using his own body as a vessel throughout the exhibition, and then manipulating it, emphasizes this duality. He has fictionalized himself by creating doppelgängers in an attempt to confront, categorize, and conquer troubling aspects of his own reality. Much older than the little prince, Paluzzi is simultaneously the narrator of his own story – though an unreliable one – and a character whom he controls. The act of using his own body as a vessel throughout the exhibition, and then manipulating it, emphasizes this duality. He has fictionalized himself by creating doppelgängers in an attempt to confront, categorize, and conquer troubling aspects of his own reality.

- Exhibition booklet excerpt by Neeko Paluzzi

Biography

Neeko Paluzzi is a queer, Canadian artist and educator whose practice focuses on intertextual, photo-based installations. His images blend the possibilities of traditional, analogue darkroom processes with contemporary photographic techniques, such as 3D scanning and printing. He was the winner of the 2018 Project X, Photography Award from the Ottawa Arts Council, and his work appeared in a featured exhibition at the Scotiabank CONTACT Festival in 2019. Paluzzi is currently completing a Masters of Fine Arts at the University of Ottawa while maintaining a teaching position at the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute.

Neeko Paluzzi gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Project X, Photography Award.

July 29 to September 19, 2021 

Exhibition video

Exhibition booklet [ PDF - 1.9 MB ]

With this new body of work, Radjenovic expands her artistic repertoire, casting bronzes from soft knitted sculptures and growing borax crystals on her pieces. She also uses her long-held knowledge of wood carving to create round hand-built structures. These various materials come together in a series of assemblages and installations that are at once stunning and mysterious. Meanwhile, the walls are hung with drawings characterized by the artist’s dreamlike language.

The Flood Line explores the theme of ecological and emotional overflow, evoking events that leave traces on our bodies and minds, just as high water does on the natural environment. A forest of plinths inhabits the centre of the gallery, topped by a treasure trove of hybrid sculptures. Natural objects commingle with human relics: the shattered remains of a human statue are encrusted with debris, fossilized fragments of prehistoric plants, spring roots… All these objects appear to have been washed up by a flood and left to dry atop of reconstructed trees.

- Exhibition booklet excerpt by Jenny McMaster

Biography

Bozica Radjenovic was born and educated in Belgrade, Serbia. She received her BFA (1989) and MFA (1991) from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade. In 1993 she moved to Canada. Radjenovic’s work has been featured in many solo and group exhibitions, most recently at the International Print Centre New York; the Ottawa Art Gallery’s inaugural exhibition; the Biennale internationale du lin de Portneuf, in Quebec; and the Belgrade Cultural Center, in Serbia. Her work is included in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, the Zepter Museum in Belgrade and the City of Ottawa, as well as in various private collections in Canada and Europe. She is represented by Central Art Garage.

The artist gratefully acknowledges the support of the City of Ottawa, the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.

September 30 to November 19, 2021
Opening: Thursday, September 30, 5:30 to 7:30 pm

Artist tour: Sunday, October 17 at 2 pm
All visitors must pre-book on Eventbrite
Free admission. Bilingual presentation.

Event protocol:

• Proof of vaccination required at gallery events 
• Access is limited to the Laurier Avenue entrance
• Masks required
• Sanitizer stations available
• Limited number of people permitted in gallery at one time

Please check the latest Ottawa Public Health safety guidelines prior to your visit.

Exhibition booklet [ PDF - 1.2 MB ]

The growing gap between the world of humans and the extent of scientific discovery is a source of both fascination and concern. When looking through the lens of science, we see ourselves with a disturbing degree of detachment. In Un peu plus haut, mon torse veillait sur vous, the microscope is replaced by a drone that keeps watch over residents of Laval and Montreal. It sends out messages, seeking to make contact. Human bodies follow established pathways as they move from the protective shell of their homes to that of their cars. Treating us as both observing subjects and observed objects, the work reflects humanity’s dissociated view of its own condition.

This exhibition, titled Au pourtour du néant (On the Outskirts of Nothingness), therefore presents a series of works that skillfully reflect on the materiality of the human body in terms of the impact of physical phenomena. On the one hand, human beings seem to be in the process of liberating themselves from earthly constraints and acquiring almost godlike powers. On the other hand, humans remain captive to their subjectivity, senses and beliefs. They continue to put forward multiple answers to the two questions that have always dogged humanity: “Where do we come from?” and “Where are we going?”

- Exhibition booklet excerpt by Gauthier Melin

Biography

Originally from Gatineau, Pascale Théorêt-Groulx earned a BA with a major in Visual Arts and a minor in Graphic Narrative from the Université du Québec en Outaouais. In 2014, she completed an MFA in Media Arts at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, having received a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Graduate Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She has been an artist in residence at the Banff Centre in Alberta, DAÏMÔN in Gatineau, Pigment Sauvage in Baltimore, the Vermont Studio Center and Fonderie Darling in Montreal. Her work has appeared in several solo and group exhibitions at venues including Fonderie Darling, the Centre CLARK, DARE-DARE and Galerie B-312 in Montreal; Verticale in Laval; the Shenkman Arts Centre in Ottawa; and the ICA in Baltimore, Maryland. She currently lives in Montreal.

The artist gratefully acknowledges the support and contribution of Fonderie Darling, Verticale — centre d’artistes, Mailis Rodrigues, Paul Gascou-Vaillancourt, Marie-Ève Chagnon, Ileana Hernandez Camacho and Luiza Proença.

December 2, 2021 to January 4, 2022

Artists’ tours: Sunday, December 5, 2 pm (in French) and 3 pm (in English)
Free admission. Registration is encouraged.
Pre-book on Eventbrite.

Event protocol:

• Proof of full vaccination and proof of identification are required at gallery events
• Access is limited to the Laurier Avenue entrance
• Masks required

Exhibition booklet [ PDF - 2.2 MB ]

Through Hugo Gaudet-Dion’s comic production, we are now accustomed to a brutal world orchestrated around the idea of play. Monstrous characters are looming in situations of extreme violence as if they were children engaged in recreational activities in a schoolyard. As for Raymond Aubin, who has a photographic background, he quickly worked on the conceptualization of the contemporary world through the lens of technology. We have seen him structure situations that at first glance seem random with regulated systems, such as surveillance cameras. […] While both artists' approaches seem to be opposed – the former fragmenting the individual into dislocated parcels, the latter seeking to recreate a more or less consistent whole by bringing together disjointed units – they find their meeting point in the concept of chaos.

- Exhibition booklet excerpt by François Chalifour

Biographies

Raymond Aubin has regularly participated in solo and group exhibitions. His artwork is included in the collections of Loto-Québec and Global Affairs Canada. He has received a grant from the CALQ and was a finalist at the Culturiades in the Outaouais region. He is also a longtime administrator of cultural organizations. He holds a bachelor's degree in visual arts.

Hugo Gaudet-Dion holds a Bachelor of Arts and Design from l’Université du Québec en Outaouais. His practice includes drawing, sculpture, painting and video animation. His various projects have been the subject of several group and solo exhibitions in Quebec, Ontario, Argentina and Cameroon.

The creation of this work was made possible thanks to the financial support of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec.

Anna Eyler, Jennifer Anne Norman, Benjamin Rodger