Ceramic and painting at Projet Pangée

Anchored at the edge of Mount Royal, the Projet Pangée gallery presents the refreshing solos of two young Canadian artists living in Montreal: Trevor Baird, with original ceramic creations, and Alexa Hawksworth, whose figurative painting is astonishing. Two artists whose work we discovered exactly a year ago.

Eric Clement
Press

Trevor Baird

We saw Trevor Baird’s vases for the first time a year ago at the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art, during the collective exhibition The machine that taught birds to air. We really liked his ceramics illustrated with symbols and mini comics, created in clay worked flat, then folded. An enormous job, with many stages before reaching this impressive installation.

The Vancouver-born artist came to Montreal in 2013 to study ceramics at Concordia. A medium that his grandmother introduced him to during his childhood. He has since become an artist greatly appreciated by collectors. Noticed in 2018 by the New York Times who had raised the quality of his works during a collective exhibition – Clay Today, at The Hole gallery, by Kathy Grayson, in New York – he had sold everything. “But it wasn’t expensive,” he says.

Trevor Baird, who also exhibited at Arsenal Toronto in 2019, now exhibits Cold Hard Excellent Fish at Projet Pangée. Its 2021 production includes three lamps, Mayonnaise, Reanimator and With the Rubbish Comes the Rats, made up of stacked vases. Sculptures of porcelain, clay, ash enamelled stoneware and concrete, original and graceful. With scraps of printed narration, inspired by everyday life and that he paints on clay before making the vase. “A risky business,” he says. You can spend a week painting on clay and it may not work out. ”

Inspired by the work of the American ceramicist Betty Woodman, Trevor Baird also made a small sculpture in sandstone, They Clean Disfigureth Their Faces, with photos affixed to one side by a decal process. As well as a series of sculptures that he had a lot of fun modeling this year. Sculptures with strange silhouettes created with different types of clay.

Represented for two years by Projet Pangée, Trevor Baird loves his life in Montreal. He loves the Montreal music scene (he just bought a bass guitar). “Montreal is an interesting city,” he says. For culture, but also it’s very friendly, very musical. There are plenty of spaces to walk around and work. I don’t think I could afford to be an artist anywhere else. After this new body of work, the 31-year-old artist will create other structures made of decorated porcelain. But not lamps. He doesn’t want to repeat himself and wants to keep improving his practice. “I still have a lot to learn,” he says.

Alexa hawksworth

We discovered Alexa Hawksworth at the Projet Casa gallery, in December 2020, as part of the exhibition Echo boomers. We wrote: “Alexa Hawksworth is inspired by her dreams and produces expressive works like Lying. Others seem to come from horror movie memories, such as Sally in Third. Or display a feminist angle like First Person which plugs us into the popularity of violent video games among boys. ”

Suffice to say that this description still applies to the artist living in Montreal since 2015 and graduating from Concordia. The pandemic has had beneficial effects for her. Containment and restrictions have inspired her a lot. As can be seen in Eclipse, an evocation of our need for solidarity and affection in these times of crisis. With these arms encircling a character drowned in the light of the embrace.

A designer since childhood, an occasional illustrator and inspired by John Currin, Alexa Hawksworth has a lot of talent and ideas. His paintings are doors open to reflection. Complex narratives that we take pleasure in detecting or developing ourselves. Paintings sometimes frightening, sometimes surprising, always strange. “Cinema and the psyche inspire me, but these pictorial stories most of the time emerge naturally,” she says. I may be a neurotic person! I like people to see the tensions in my work. The way I interpret things. ”

Alexa Hawksworth, however, likes to balance the sensations in her paintings. So as not to turn them into works that turn off at first glance. In Stroke – our favorite work -, she balanced the expression of freedom and desire to please in these three young girls, with two other characters (including one in the shadows) who seem to issue a sort of warning. The experience addressing recklessness.

For the canvases Interior, Night I and Interior, Night II, she placed, again in opposition, a sort of serene artistic expression (music in one, reading in the other) in contrast with characters present to distract, even threaten the peace of the musician or the musician. reader. An allusion in particular to social networks when they convey appearances, acrimony and the superficial.

“We have to develop our uniqueness,” she says. In these two paintings, the characters are aware of the context in which they find themselves. At the same time, they are able to escape from it while remaining in their inner light. ”

The artist of Ontario origin has just been invited to exhibit solo, also in New York, next June. “A new gallery, Theta, contacted me after seeing my work on Instagram,” she says. They then visited my studio with Zoom. And they gave me the exhibition! ”

Alexa Hawksworth has the same reflex as Trevor Baird. She is delighted to see that her artistic career takes a good turn at the age of 27. But she considers that she still has to learn. “On a technical level, in particular,” she says. I like complexity in creation, but at the same time I want it to be able to be appreciated with clarity. ”

Alexa Hawksworth and Trevor Baird until December 18 at the Projet Pangée gallery, at 1305 avenue des Pins Ouest, Montreal