Elisabeth Picard exhibit – through January 29, 2022

McClure Gallery presents

Elisabeth Picard ─ Hylozoïsme

Ingenious use of ‘Ty-Rap’ nylon ties and textile techniques, knot work and dyeing.

Elisabeth Picard is fascinated by the processes of growth and transformation in the living world and the architecture of natural forms. She has made ingenious use of textile structure-making techniques, including basketry, knot work and dyeing, to create large-scale installations using nylon ties. The Ty-Rap, first developed to secure wiring inside airplanes, has evolved from a metal fastener to the nylon zip-tie we know today. Inexpensively mass-produced, elegant and very versatile, the zip-tie has been integrated into our culture as a well-adapted organism. Elisabeth Picard uses this metaphor and the assembling properties of this synthetic object to create her works.

Having incorporated light as a material and lighting programming in her sculptures, Picard is focusing her current research on two creative poles: fixed compositions in space associated with traditional sculpture and moving compositions generated by motor. The unifying idea is created by the line and the knot that unfolds in space like animate or inanimate matter. The various works evoke the principle that “all matter is endowed with life”; by perpetual movement, but also by a mechanical sensibility that suggests the natural turning and bending of living beings.

Elisabeth Picard’s artistic research has been supported by Concordia University, SSHRC, FQRSC, CALQ and SODEC. Her work has been exhibited in Canada, Cuba, France and Lithuania as well as in several publications and international sites. She has participated in the Biennale internationale du lin in Portneuf, the Biennale nationale de sculpture contemporaine de Trois-Rivières, the Red Bull Music Academy Montréal at the Phi Center, the Subtle Technologies Festival in Toronto, Le Banquet at the Salon Révélations in the Grand Palais in Paris and Joueuses/joueurs at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Picard has been in residence at Est-Nord-Est in Saint-Jean-Port-Joli QC, Artmandat in Barjols, France and The Rooms AIR residency in Gros Morne National Park (NL). To date she has created five permanent public artworks as part of Quebec’s art and architecture integration policy. She lives in Montreal.

Art hive (in-person): Saturday, January 29, from 10:30 am to 1 pm
Building sculpture with Ty-Rap, Meccano-style!
Inspired by Elisabeth Picard’s “Hylozoïsm” exhibition at the McClure Gallery, participants will create small sculptures using assemblage and basketry techniques inherent in the potential of Ty-Rap. You will learn how the how repurposing and objects and materials can be a driving force for creation, regardless of scale (miniature or gigantic, abstract or figurative)!
Materials will be provided.

www.visualartscentre.ca/mcclure-gallery/

About the Visual Arts Centre and the McClure Gallery
The Visual Arts Centre is an art school, a sought-after contemporary art venue and an outreach programme, where art is taught, made, exhibited and shared seven days a week, all year round. Founded in 1946 as a women-run ceramics collective and now in its 75th year, the Centre is a thriving cultural hub whose programmes support an essential artistic community and contribute to the intellectual and emotional well-being of individuals. The School of Art draws thousands of people annually from across the city to attend its art courses and workshops. Through its ARTreach outreach programme, the Centre continues to work with teens, seniors, at-risk populations, youth with special needs and community centres to enrich everyday lives in transformative ways.

The McClure Gallery features approximately ten exhibitions of emerging and established artists each year, along with artist lectures and guided tours, regular ‘art hives’ and other special events, all of which have pivoted to online or hybrid formats since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

For each exhibition, an artist- or curator-guided gallery tour will be recorded and made accessible online on the McClure Gallery’s Facebook page and the Visual Art Centre’s YouTube channel. The gallery’s monthly ‘art hive’ mini-workshops, usually hosted by the exhibiting artist, are held the last Saturday of the month, in person if public health restrictions allow, and otherwise on Facebook Live.

All events take place at McClure Gallery, at 350 Victoria Avenue, just south of Sherbrooke Street, in Westmount (QC), H3Z 2N4 (metro Vendôme; bus 24, 63, 104, 13).
Gallery opening hours are Tuesday to Friday from 12 to 6 pm and Saturday from 12 to 5 pm.
514-488-9558 ext. 226