Exhibition Dates: June 9 – July 14, 2023
Opening Reception: Friday, June 9, 2023 @ 5 – 8 pm
Artist talk: Saturday June 10, 2023 @ 1pm
ASL interpretation will be provided and live captions will be enabled.
This talk is free to attend and open to the public.
Exhibition Text by Vi Houssin
//
Martha Street Studio is pleased to present Embedded, a solo exhibition by Monique Fillion (MB).
Embedded is an exhibition of digital photos and folded paper structures that suggests an alternative experience of the ordinary. Fillion’s
work is metaphorical, abstract, and meditative as it guides us below
the surface of our relationships with the places and objects that
surround us. Images are filled with chimerical beings and archetypes
that touch upon sub-conscious ideas, offering an invitation to become
immersed in looking and receptive to the pleasures of free association.
The shadows and shifts found in her work uncover the beautiful, the
fragile and the ominous, redefining our sense of reality.
//
In this new body of work, Fillion works to disrupt our relationship
with the familiar and the mundane by revealing the intrinsic vitality of
inanimate objects. Excavating deeply into the commonplace object of
tissue gift wrapping paper to uncover what lies hidden below, Embedded delves into unexpected tunnels of thoughts and experiences.
Fillion’s approach is explorative and playful in nature. The creative
process for this body of work began through photographing handmade
tissue paper structures, hung in front of a window. Through layering
images of the paper and sculpting the shapes with a light brush in
Photoshop, Fillion creates surreal compositions that reveal encrusted
forms of insects, winged creatures, and other whimsical beasts.
Composed of two-dimensional photographs, organic in nature and often
possessing a sculptural quality, Fillion’s pieces become constructions
of evocative forms filled with ambiguity and introspection suggesting
the idea of transformation. Shapes embedded in the images evoke the
universal in the form of symbols and ideas that inhabit us, often
without our knowledge, buried by everyday life. These forms reveal some
of the biases and peculiarities of one’s own thoughts and experiences,
and invite us to question our habitual way of perceiving the world.
Subtle photographs embedded in the origami paper remind the viewer
that the subject of the images is an innocuous, commonplace object.
Tunneling back and forth between the extraordinary and the ordinary, the
surreal and the concrete, Embedded digs into the boundary between the conscious and the subconscious.
///
Monique Fillion is a francophone visual artist who lives and works in
Winnipeg, Manitoba. She obtained her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the
University of Manitoba and currently works with digital photography and
video, as well as acrylic paint on canvas. Her work focusses on themes
of transformation, diversity, and the delicate balance essential to all
relationships. She is a member of a collective of eight Manitoba artists
called The Winnipeg Pantsuit Collective. Her work has been
exhibited in New York, New York and in several galleries in Alberta,
Saskatchewan, and Manitoba and three of her paintings are in public
collections.
Monique can be found online at moniquefillion.com and on Instagram @moniquefillion
Exhibition documentation below by Bramwell Enan
