PFOAC - Current Exhibition

Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain is pleased to present FACE À FACE / LOOKING BACK, a selection of recent and early works by ten artists using photography, video, multimedia, or installation art to explore contemporary issues of representation through the tradition of portraiture. This group exhibition is also an occasion to mark the fact that the gallery is entering its 10th year of existence!

As a complex register of emotions, expressions, and personal identity; the human face has been an enduring source of inspiration for artists throughout history. The representation of subjects in the visual arts, however, is a site of critical enquiry and debate. What do portraits say about the individuals depicted, the public who views them, and the artists who mediate this experience?

FACE À FACE / LOOKING BACK questions the role of the portrayed subject as a passive agent. In some of the works on display, the sitters are actively involved in their own representation. They interact with each other and engage with viewers directly. Though some of the sitters return our gaze, others avoid doing so as if to resist our facile attempts to classify them. The faces of some of those portrayed remain concealed or are obscured, as though to protect their anonymity while looking at us.

In conventional portraiture, the role of the artist is often understated in order to create the semblance of a one-to-one relationship between sitter and viewer. For some of the works presented, this illusion has been abandoned in favour of emphasizing the constructed nature of the portrait. Faces are dissected into grid-like compositions, presented in a temporal sequence, or are created through composites taken from numerous sources. Elsewhere in the exhibition, artists engage in self-representation, although the act of self-portraiture is deferred as their features are substituted by other forms.

In as much as FACE À FACE / LOOKING BACK challenges conventions of portraiture while exploring the relationships between sitters, viewers and artists; it also draws our attention to the very act of looking.

(click on images below for larger view, please ensure browser pop-up blockers are disabled)

MARC AUDETTE

untitled
1995
impression à tonalité bleue
113.5 x 99.5 cm (45" x 39")
unique

ALEXANDRE CASTONGUAY


Admiration 0,0, 204 ( from the series "Le dessin des passions") 1998 c-print 75 x 60 cm. (29.5" x 23.6") 1/6		Haine 255, 61, 21 ( from the series "Le dessin des passions") 1998 c-print 75 x 60 cm. (29.5" x 23.6") 1/6

LUC COURCHESNE

Passages
1998
interactive video installation
variable dimensions

AMY ELKINS


Jon, Brooklyn, NY 2008 c-print 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20" x 15.9") 1/5		Max, Brooklyn, NY 2008 c-print 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20" x 15.9") 1/5		Alexander, Brooklyn, NY 2008 c-print 50.8 x 40.6 cm (20" x 15.9") 1/5

ADAD HANNAH

Dad and David Visiting
2010
HD video
7 min 22s
1/5

JOHN LATOUR


Smiling man and woman in formal dress sitting in front of a mirror 2008 found photograph with acrylic paint 7.2 x 11.4 cm (2.8" x 4.5")		Woman wearing a floral dress, over-sized jacket and hat standing in front of apartment buildings 2008 found photograph with acrylic paint 15.5 x 9.6 cm (6" x 3.7")		Man in white hugging tree 2008 found photograph with acrylic paint 11.1 x 7 cm. (4.3" x 1.5")