Fleurs d’archives Exhibition 2023
October 14th - November 18th, 2023
Artist Statement:
In Fleurs d’archives I present works that explore personal consciousness within a collective landscape. The exhibition features ceramics, drawings, paintings and works on fabric, interacting with each other. Some images come from my research into the photographic archives of the Strand Center for the Arts. They are staged around my own extensive photo archive such as my past works with scientists, as well as the current photographs I took in my local community with both digital and analog cameras. Then I transferred them onto paper, fabric, white stoneware forms, fire bricks, NYC-style subway tiles, glazed hand-built porcelain, or ceramics as studio-made fired decals. Ceramics shapes are echoed in colored pencil drawing on paper and on acrylic paintings on canvas.
Surreal landscapes emerge from installations, merging layers of time and combining flashes of memories. Ceramics porcelain dolls, first created as book holders, were photographed in their in-between-fire states at Point au Roche State Park, where I brought them as walking companions during the deep pandemic moments, when the USA/CA border was shut down, and before I could form my new, local community. Local friends, creatives, and young farmers appear in more recent photographic surfaces. A short video entitled Archive d’eau brings to life the possible future of photo-pebbles, where one may also be able to experience an in-between state, where dissolution of stories can offer a meditative state.
Some photographs created before the border opened present sail boats with Québécois names in state of stillness, hibernating through two summers, waiting for the border to open and to start moving freely in the wind again. Some images from my family archive relate to my personal history of living on the New York- side shores of Lake Champlain, throughout the pandemic. Historical images have been chosen for their resonance with my personal history and interest; my artistic process fully embraces the non-objective treatment of historical photographs that can both lose their original meanings and find new ones. I feel like I’ve just begun with opening of what seems like Pandora’s box of images, revealing the often hidden and complicated Québécois heritage of this border region. For this reason, I have chosen an exhibition title in French - Fleurs d’archives (Archives’ Flowers). Most of the artworks included in the exhibition also hold titles in French, often of poetic nature.
In conjunction with the exhibition, I look forward to hosting Oct 25th a French Club/performance dedicated to spoken translation of my titles, entitled Réveille tes arrière-grands-parents (Wake up your great grand parents). I hope that historians and Québécois descendants, who vaguely remember their grandmothers swearing in Québécois, will show up and exchange stories.
This solo exhibition is made possible thanks to the NYSCA Support for Artists, FY23 grant and my fiscal sponsor, the Strand Center for the Arts in Plattsburgh, where the exhibition is staged.
It is curated by Zeljka Himbele: Zeljka Himbele is a curator based in New York City. Originally from Croatia, where she worked for several years at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb, she graduated at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College, US. From 2008-2010 she worked at the Contemporary Art Department of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI, working on a series of solo and group exhibitions for New Media Gallery. She frequently collaborated with G-MK Gallery in Zagreb, where she curated the exhibitions by Mark Tribe, Duncan Campbell, Eve K. Tremblay and, most recently, eteam. She was a guest critic, lecturer, panelist or exhibition juror for the institutions The ISCP, NY; NARS Foundation, NY; CUNY, NY; The New School, NY; The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, NY; Wave Hill, NY; Art OMI International Art Center, Ghent; Dumbo Arts Center, NY; Residency Unlimited, NY; Pratt Institute, Brooklyn; Flux Factory, NY; Chester College, NH; Cambridge Art Association, MA; Parsons The New School for Design, NY; and Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design, RI, among others. Additionally, Zeljka was a Curatorial Fellow at Art in General, and also curated exhibitions at Plexus Projects, Residency Unlimited and NURTUREart in Brooklyn, NY; Big Medium Gallery in Austin, TX; Lafayette College, PA; Cuchifritos, NY; Illuminated Metropolis, NY; Occurrence, Montreal, Canada; and Futura Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic. In 2021, Zeljka presented Stirring Glows at UrbanGlass Brooklyn, a group exhibition featuring neon-based works by artists engaged with urgent ecological, social and political topics. Until 2023, she was a Curator-at-Large at Urban Glass, Brooklyn.
Born in 1972, Ève K. Tremblay grew up (en français) between Val-David and Montreal in Quebec. After studying French literature at the University of Montreal, she attended The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theater (NYC 1994-1995), worked in the film industry as a still photographer in Montreal (member AQTIS-IATSE) and graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Visual Arts with a photography major from Concordia University in Montreal in 2000 with a best Overall achievement award. The influence of literature, theater and cinema remain very present in her photographic and interdisciplinary works mixed with the exploration of science and consciousness. She was recipient of many grants such as from CAC and CALQ and was Long listed for the Sobeys Art Award (Quebec, 2012). She lived many years between Montreal, Berlin, NYC and has participated in numerous artists residencies. Her works have been widely published namely in The New York Times, Art Forum Critic picks, Ciel Variable, Border Crossings, C-Magazine, Canadian Art Magazine, Kunstforum, Le Devoir, etc. Her works have been exhibited at the National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec, the Bergen Kunsthall, the Kunstraum Kreuzberg, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Montreal, the Prague Biennial, The Nordic Biennale, MAC LAU, MAC/VAL, Petach Tikva Museum of Art, UWAG, SAAG, Owens Art Gallery,, amongst other art institutions and galleries. Her works can be found in public collections such at Le Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, and Le Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec, à Québec.
Thank you to: all who participated in my project in one way or another and people I photographed on the streets and elsewhere during a very strange collective experiences: Anne Miriam Burnett Champagne & Moss Brook Flower Farm, Mike Champagne, Marisa Lenetsky and Levy from North-Point Community Farm, Ashlee from North Country Creamery, NYSCA for the amazing financial support, The whole team at the Strand Center for the Arts with a special thanks to Mollie Ward who helped me with larger clay pieces at a time when I was healing a shoulder injury; my supportive pandemic friends, precious online dialogues with Zeljka Himbele, Logan Brody, Walter Early, Tom & Joe Mc Nichols, Vera Vivante, Julia & Michael Devine; Those who let me photograph them: Amy Guglielmo, Avis Smiley & Claudine Clark, Suzanne Hokanson, the Owens family, The Swarthouts, The Crotty’s, Carol Arnold, Paolo Fedi, Arlette Prothin, Barbara Mitchel, among others. Some are not included in this exhibition, but may be one day. Those who helped me heal and be able to complete this exhibition: Brooke Hugues from Halcyon Massage, Florence Raynaud from On Point Wellness, Chiro Chris A. Benoit. Locations I often visited and photographed: The City Marina of Plattsburgh, Penfield Community Garden, The City of Plattsburgh, NY Point au Roche State Park, NY, Rulfs Orchard, NY.. Thanks also to my ceramic-sculptor father Alain-Marie Tremblay for his support and influences throughout my life. Thanks to Alex Clark, my supportive husband, whose grandfather was named John W. Tremblay, before he took his mother’s name (Clark), a fact I discovered in 2023.
This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of my mother (Michèle Ménard-Tremblay 1943-2023)
This solo exhibition is made possible thanks to the NYSCA Support for Artists, FY23
