November 20 – December 18, 2015
Opening Reception: Friday, November 20 2015, 6-8pm
Artist Talk: Friday, November 20 2015, 6:30pm
Based in Montréal, Marie Dauverné‘s video work is characterized by a dense collage aesthetic that uses a mixture of archival imagery, folk music, and handmade drawings to pose seemingly naive questions on the more taboo aspects of family, relationships, sexuality, and race. With child-like logic, Dauverné unmasks the adult world as one mixed up, messed up place. A land where unbridled colonialism is both an historical condition and a pernicious constant experienced by Indigenous peoples. A world where racism is both casual and devastating, a place where sex is scary, painful and potentially deadly, where neither « Arabs « nor « homos » are allowed in the house. Yet the young voice continues to try to piece it all together : the alcoholic uncle, perhaps the one who served in Algeria, the grandfather who is fragile at the death of his wife, then too mean to hug and finally dead himself. This jumble of experiences careens along with Dauverné’s deft hand at the tiller, no shore in sight but a ride that is part wonder and part madness. A condition very much like childhood itself.
Dauverné writes: “Through drawing,video and installation and sometimes performance, I tell stories from parts of my life, “official” history and the latest gossip of my neighbours. In this more than reactionary context in which I bathe, I guess we ought to make our voices heard – mine is queer – so we can try to make some sense for ourselves and our fellow humans out of all this.”
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Marie Dauverné received her BFA from Concordia University (2011) and her MFA from UQAM (Montréal) in 2014. Her multi-disciplinary work has been exhibited at Powerhouse, Art Souterrain and Parisian Laundry in Montréal, screened in festivals including MIXNY (New York) and the Festival Lugares Sin Fronteras (Quito, Ecuador). She received numerous grants and awards in both her undergraduate and graduate studies including the Yves Gaucher Prize in Studio Arts (2010), Golden Key International Scholar Award (2012), an SSHRC/CRSH Research Award (2011-12), and Lauréate de la Bourse Claudine et Stephen Bronfman en art contemporain (2014).