At a time when large-scale immersive experiences, and under fierce marketing campaigns, are constantly multiplying — including for a single artist (after Imagine Van Goghhere is what stands Van Gogh – Distortion) —, the most recent exhibition by artist Andréanne Godin could be perceived as a snub to all these seductive enterprises. Or as an example of no less effective economy of means (and healthy modesty).
Enter the “big” hall of the Oboro center (large, but twelve times smaller than the space of the Palais des Congrès which hosts Van Gogh. Distortion), it is to move forward in the middle of the forest. The general penumbra, on the one hand, the changing lighting which passes subtly from a wintry blue to a fiery red, on the other hand, set the tone. The various representations of trees, streams and snow-covered ground establish the iconographic program. And if, by chance, the day of the visit, the outside wind blows, it will be audible. And the experience, total.
In just three stations (or three works), the exhibition The place where you still exist fills the room with an imaginary universe that is both reassuring and dark, familiar and mysterious. With her, Andréanne Godin signs the third part of a project making the forest the place of many mourning. Her childhood memories in Abitibi, just like the current context (climate and health crises, urbanization and deforestation, etc.), serve as her inspiration.
Edited with the support of colleague Marie-Ève Charron, already curator of the previous section (so blue what is our time, 2021), the exhibition at Oboro remains a field open to interpretation. The installation of pollarded and stripped trees that one discovers in the back of the room can cause sadness and death, but the presence of a blue specimen, almost radiating life on its neighbors, projects another life.
This idea of starting over is also evident in a small painting depicting a winter scene. The frontal composition lingers on an icy low wall on which the snow has frozen. Impossible not to think, for those who have already experienced it, of purple hour (1921) by Ozias Leduc. The famous painting, now in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, is “the synthesis” of the symbolist landscapes of Leduc, according to Laurier Lacroix, a great specialist in the painter. ” purple hour refers to the moment of transition between day and evening […]moment between action and rest”, writes the one who describes an oak tree as “a symbol of continuity and permanence”.
With Andréanne Godin, the tree is a recurring motif in her practice, which she began ten years ago. Draftsman above all, she nevertheless works on a large scale, even on a real scale. Walking in nature, suggested or even real experience (the work of 2015 Wanna Go for a Walk?), is like the corollary of this proposal to live the forest from the inside.
In The place where you still exist, the piece de resistance is a huge design spread over a cylindrical structure. The rounded shape gives the impression of an endless landscape, imperceptible at a glance. We dive into a clearing represented not at the crossroads of two times, but in two times. If the hour here is not purple, it is blue, then red, or red, then blue. The contribution of Karine Gauthier, designer of the light, is to be noted as the immersive experience is based on the strength of her lighting.
Without being an alarmist, Andréanne Godin is one of those artists who seek to restore to nature its importance, its vital existence. Like photographer Chloé Beaulac, who projects herself into the Laurentians of her childhood, or like Andreas Rutkauskas, who sees in forest fires, also in photos, the hope of a rebirth, Andréanne Godin combines past and present to armed with optimism. A mourning does not equal an end.