Art in Montreal

This time around, I highlight a set of interrelated concerns in four seemingly disparate exhibitions. Part of the Post-Invisibles Biennale , Histoires de disparition by Judith Bellavance was at Galerie DÈS . The exhibition involved a series of approximately life-sized photos of clothing that once belonged to the departed. Not as austere as mourning or typical funereal display garments, they were everyday or nightwear, which added to their diaphanous quality and the muted sense of illumination their production treatment infused them with. These were displayed hanging horizontally in the middle of the gallery space, suspended in clusters. Images were set back-to-back, and their presentational hanging doubled the image of the clothes hanging.  Bellavance framed it all as a counterpart to her work as an embalmer: To engage with my creative themes of loss and disappearance, I have been working in the funeral sector since 2019. This proximity constantly heightens my awareness o...

Hannaleah Ledwell's Pour ceux qui mangeait des fleurs at Galerie du Viaduc Hannaleah Ledwell ’s pieces displayed at Galerie du Viaduc seem to continue what she was doing in the last two exhibitions of hers that I have seen (at Popup and Gallery Parfois). But there have also been some significant shifts. Specifically, her palette has altered. It is darker, bluer, more night scene but still in the pastoral vein that she seems to cultivate. The rendering of the bodies is clearer and cartoonishly overlaid to make the gestures more legible while less concrete. The figures are more readable, their distinction from the ground is starker than before. This is also helped by the greater expansion in palette. One of the more interesting things in the show is the inclusion of what appear to be several small mock-ups for paintings that dot across one back wall. It might have been interesting to integrate this aspect more into the display of the more fully worked-out pieces. It will be intere...

  You don’t see a great deal of erotic art in the city, so it was a pleasant surprise to walk into Hannaleah Ledwell Rêves insolites at Galerie Popop . The works span the last few years and there is some divergence in terms of the treatment of spatialization even if the colour schemes remain consistent. These shifts don’t appear to have been linear, although there does seem to have been a gradual flattening of the surface and simplification of its texture. The earlier paintings are a bit more built up, almost sculptural in articulation, which also gives them a slightly more morbid quality.  Rêves insolites explores the physical manifestations of love languages. Focusing on intimacy with oneself and with others, this body of work aims to convey tangible sensations, both corporeal and emotional. It is an exploration of the viscerality of touch, the softness of a caress, the vulnerability of pleasure and the chaotic mix of all these feelings at once. The more surprising thi...