16 novembre 2022 - 11 janvier 2023
Attentive to the unknown, Émilie Allard creates ensembles from a variety of information drawn from her environment. Formally related or linked by thought, she assembles them into a visual sibling. The result is a raw gentleness that bridges the gap between destruction and construction. Emilie Allard's work is electrified by the lack of certainty with which humanity is confronted.
She looks through the prism of connection, limits and the subtle, ongoing experience of mutations in perception. In doing so, she draws inspiration from psychoanalytical and philosophical discourse, and from female voices such as Annie Ernaux, Louise Glück and Anne Carson. The space oscillates between the limited possibilities of the material and the signifying charge of the objects. Vertigo, sculpture, words, photography and drawing are her working tools.
Artist and poet Émilie Allard holds a bachelor's degree in graphic design from Université du Québec à Montréal (2015) and is a candidate for a master's degree in sculpture at Concordia University (2023). In addition to her individual practice, she has collaborated with choreographers to create video projections and has been part of a multidisciplinary collective. Her individual and collective work has been presented on several occasions, including at the Festival international de littérature, Tangente, Arsenal art contemporain, Espace Projet and Maison de la culture du Plateau.
https://emilieallard.com/physique
photo by artist Heewoong Jin
Allard, Émilie, Carbone scopique, Le lézard amoureux, 2021, 90 p.
A past and a present are on the march towards their coupling: Carbone scopique offers a concentric experience that is sometimes incantatory, sometimes arid, firm, fertile or real. A gathering where dulled impressions join dazzled desire, the hypothetical, falls and catches in slow gravitational movements. Representations, senses, vertigo, relationships, moods, settings and memories are all called upon to gather around a blurred force of attraction, which turns out to be a void, akin to death, but which instead of dispossessing the body, settles within it. In these poems, each revolution is marked by the deposition of a layer of their sediment, gradually revealing the shape of the curious floor on which they stand.
how can you settle into a smooth pattern
if there's nowhere to live from
except from the organ of dazzle
it's toast
if mercury is rampant
the fold of the complex file
slides without riser
our truth was not optional
neither vicinity nor sex would bring rest
then why were we girls straight line in joual of perfection