Exhibition from May 25th to July 28th 2023
The Centre culturel franco-manitobain is proud to present the first edition of our art exhibition entitled “Exploration”. This exhibition is a major event for our local art community and we are delighted to present the work of five talented emerging artists who represent the diversity and richness of our Francophone and Métis community.
We are confident that this exciting contemporary art exhibition will be an inspiring experience for art lovers and professionals alike. Each of the artists selected for the exhibition has his or her own unique vision, style and technique that will bring a fresh and original perspective to contemporary art. The works presented will cover a variety of themes and subjects that will provoke thought and emotion in the public.
The “Exploration” exhibition is an opportunity for artists from the local community to present their work in a professional context and gain visibility. We are proud to provide a platform to support and encourage local artistic expression, and to allow our visitors to discover the artistic diversity of our region.
The opening of the exhibition will take place on May 25th from 6pm to 8pm at the Centre culturel franco-manitobain. This is an opportunity to meet these artists, discuss their work and learn more about their backgrounds and inspirations. We warmly invite you to join us for this major event in Franco-Manitoban cultural life.
We are convinced that this first edition of “Exploration” will be the beginning of a long series of exhibitions that will showcase local talent and arouse the interest and admiration of art lovers.
We hope you will join us to celebrate the richness and diversity of Francophone and Métis art at this exceptional exhibition.
Date and time:
From May 25th to 28 July, 2023
Monday to Friday
From 9am to 1pm and from 2pm to 5pm
Vernissage :
Thursday 25th May from 6PM to 8PM
Q&A sessions at 7PM
Location:
Ground floor of the CCFM, just past the entrance to Stella’s
Chantal Piché
Since the age of 14, Chantal Piché has been illustrating children’s books. It goes without saying that she has a natural talent for drawing. After training in advertising illustration at Salette College in Montreal in 2020, she made illustration her profession. Her career mainly revolves around children’s and educational illustration. Her signature style is expressive and colorful, notably inspired by Japanese animation.
Dominique Consuelo Carrière
Dominique Consuelo Carrière is a queer French-Mexican-Metis visual artist influenced, inspired and taught by all her different communities. She believes that art has the power to bring hope and joy to Indigenous and queer continuity, resistance and resilience. It is also a tool to help us and others learn and unlearn about our colonial history on Turtle Island and how these stories have affected us on an individual and structural level. Through her creations, she shares her journey of connections and relationships to the land and culture.
Elyse Saurette
Elyse Saurette (Saint-Boniface) is a Franco-Manitoban multidisciplinary artist who works in drawing, painting, and mixed-media sculpture. She has a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from the University of Manitoba and participated in the MAWA (Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art) Foundation Mentorship Program in 2015, where she was mentored by artist Mélanie Rocan.
The subjects she works with are a combination of whimsy, grief, dissociation, and coming of age. With her current body of work, she represents the ebbs and flows experienced in life through a collection of abstract porcelain pieces. The whole depicts the intrinsic moments in one’s life where you can either break out into the unknown and choose growth, or remain in the comfort of what is familiar, risking becoming stagnant.
Her work has been featured in group exhibitions through aceartinc and MARCC (Manitoba’s Art Run Centre Coalition. She has also had a solo exhibition of her work in La Maison des artistes visuels francophones’ community gallery in 2012.
Robert Nicolas
Robert Nicolas is a Francophone multidisciplinary artist born in Winnipeg. After studying fine arts at the Université de Moncton (NB), he obtained a B.A. in literature from the Université de Saint-Boniface and an M.A. in creative writing from the University of Manitoba. In 2015, he published a collection of short stories, Nouvelles orphelines (Éditions du Blé), in which he explores the banality of everyday life.
Passionate about the extra in the ordinary, even along a well-trodden path, the photographer’s approach is inspired by movement and its effect on a subject. He is interested in experimenting with perspective, with an eye for technical consideration but also a willingness to take creative risks, giving old spaces new life. Often using geometric shapes, his images question framing and the boundaries we take for granted – helping the viewer to step outside of their usual perspective, to see things as if for the first time.
The photographs featured in this exhibition are a compelling illustration of how the land inspires the artist’s work. Thus, the works created in Winnipeg are a product of wandering, conceived out of daily walks through the city’s streets. We feel the artist is on the lookout, searching for something: a way in? A way out? Another passageway, perhaps secret? The structures are strong, clear and powerful, they demand another way around.
The pictures taken in Portugal invite us into another state of awareness. The artist’s walks become meditative, the lens lingering on suspended moments, life put on hold. Passersby appear alone, facing what they have built: imposing structures, built up with history, now looking back, down upon them. This disproportion between human and matter, this battle between who will or will not lower its head, forces us to wonder whether these lifeless structures will outlast life itself.
Perhaps the answer lies in the Saskatchewan landscapes. They emerge from a time of collapse, a whisper of another time: what happened? Where have these people gone? What is left of what has left us? These standing structures exemplify the dichotomy of the absence of presence and the presence absence.
Sara St-Cyr
Self-taught artist Sara St-Cyr is based in the Treaty 1 territory. Sara is inspired by the emotions created when in the presence of vibrant colors, shapes and human relationships. Using mediums such as oil, watercolor, pottery and writing, she explores the intersections of human experience with form and color.
Sara’s intentions in creating are to embody various emotions through a tangible physical tangible physical representation. She wants the viewer to hover over the feelings or events that first come to events that first come to mind when experiencing her work. Her work has been featured in Winnipeg stores such as Fortify, Tokyo Smoke (River) and Forth Cafe, as well as in a multitude of private collections. With a degree in social work, Sara hopes to further explore the intersections of the therapeutic the intersections of the therapeutic effects of art in social work practice.
Philosophy/Artistic Approach
Sara likes to keep my artistic process relatively simple in order to create in a random and organic way. She often begins by writing my intentions for a project, followed by a sketch and a color palette. Her philosophy as it relates to art in general is often based on her life experiences. She tries to create a tangible representation of an experience, either lived or imagined. Her process of reflection is the majority of her approach. She creates and lives with the idea that everything is constantly in motion; our environment, our friends, our relationships, our creations. Art is always fluid. The energy that is transmitted through a piece brings to life the viewer and the artist and their environment. She bases my creative process on the principle that art is a medium of communication and of expression that can never be generalized nor limited.
