ANDRÉANNE FOURNIER
Canada

SUMU Residency 24.5.–23.7.2009

http://andreannefournier.com/


How did we end up here?
Sumu 17.7. – 2.8. 2009

Opening 16.7.2009 6pm - 8pm. Welcome!

Canadian artist Andréanne Fournier works in Arte Association’s Sumu Residency in June and July 2009. From 17th of July to 2nd of August Fournier has a exhibition in Sumu studio (by the Gallery Titanik) with a video installation of her animations that she has made during her residency time in Turku.

“ My images mix video sequences of body parts, hand-drawings of bubblegum-like shapes and internal organ’s inspired lines and architectures. And while working on these images for some time, my studio became a slippery territory. The children-like cartoon figures’ imagery and the sexually loaded organic textures appeared to nourish incestuous yet merging relationships. Where does one end? And that place, does it means it is precisely the starting point of something else? Is it interesting to know that part anyway? It is a confronting idea to think that both these worlds can embrace and fuse one another into something that holds itself together, somehow, with a surprising efficiency. “

“ I don’t quite remember where I started to work with these issues, or what exactly came up on my way to get here. But, by some means, it seems like I managed. I am not sure yet of what it is that I am coming up with right now. It is difficult to name. But one thing is for sure; its object operates on me some kind of fascination. “

“ Still, I am afraid this is not a harmonious territory. I am afraid there is a struggle going on in the middle of these organs stuck into knots. And I find myself also struggling on my own, because I cannot choose sides. I am no partisan. “
/ Andréanne Fournier

Balloons & Shrimps –exhibition
Sumu 9.–14.6.2009

Canadian artist Andreanne Fournier works in Arte Association’s Sumu Residency in June and July 2009. From 9th to 14th of June Fournier has a exhibition in Sumu studio with a video installation of her earlier animations. Later in July Fournier organizes a second exhibition, where she’ll show the new animated drawings that she has made during her residency time in Turku.

“The friendly jelly-like bodies from cartoons, toys or plushies, harmless and round shaped, are specially conceived for children. Thought to be securing and comforting, they produce a true fascination in the kids’ eyes. Until, at some point, this fascination bends and twists as the adult’s perception takes over. Some kind of apprehension is then involved. Those bubble gum-like textures, soft and elastic, become ambiguous, boneless and abstracted, almost monstrous. The adult’s point of view operates other associations and nourishes other fears; unfamiliar bodies, medical bodies, internal or genital organs. “

“My images, interstitial, choose not to choose. Abstraction and figuration are fragmented as the real movement is masked or aborted by the free hand-drawing. The shapes are neither comforting, neither frankly disturbing and they persistently move back and forth in-between the adult and the child’s imagery. To half-be is, to my opinion, a choice itself. To almost-be and to may-be are other options. “

/ Andréanne Fournier


Bio

Andreanne Fournier is an artist who works and lives in Montreal, Canada. She recently graduated from the Master in Visual and Media Arts in UQAM in Montreal and she is currently working in the Sumu artist residency in Finland at Titanik Gallery, Turku.
Her works are drawn animations made out of video footage and they are showed as video projections and drawings. Her images explore the friendly shapes and rubber-like bodies from children's cartoon figures and the more ambiguous and complex forms of the internal or genital organs.

Andreanne Fournier just concluded 2 solo shows this spring at Grave and Verticale Galleries in Quebec. She won the Discreet Grant in 2005 (Best Media Artwork, UQAM Gallery.) and, in collaboration with fellow artist Marc-Alexandre Dumoulin, Festival EICV 2007's First Prize. Her works were shown in many group exhibitions such as Abomination (CDEX. 2007), Transit (Montreal-Telegraphe Gallery. 2007), Les Cadeaux du Crépuscule (L'Art passe à l'Est Group. 2006) and Phenomenale (Art Mur Gallery. 2006). Her work was also part of 2008 New Cinema Festival in Montreal (FNC Lab. 2008) and showed at the 5th Montreal's All-nighter Group exhibition in CDEx during the 9th Edition of Montreal High Lights Festival (2008).

Artist's Statement

I have said a lie. It is wrong. Now I feel guilty. I have to go on and live with my lie and my guilt. Unless I choose to bend reality and to stick to my lie. Then a gap appears. It increases in between my lie and the reality as, from now on, the two evolve separately. My lie grows bigger and further from the truth which also goes on towards its own path.

But this truth is a matter of point of view; reality is fragmented and variable as it possesses multiple faces that are disjoined and indistinguishable. The nature of the real is chaotic and rejects constructed notions such as chronology, hierarchy, morals. Reality is a violent concept which does not provide explanations for its misunderstood or blurred parts. It does not naturally bend to make sense. At this point, the nature of the real somehow reaches, sooner or later, with the nature of the lie.

I consider my work like a lie that has gone to extended proportions. My drawings rely on live action video footage but deviate from it voluntarily, creating unjustified gaps, incongruities and masks. By going on through time, these drawings nourish these gaps.

These transformations extract any possible function, logic or coherence from the actions seen in the original images. They focus on the shapes and they amplify the bodies towards more intuitive textures. These bodies become organs stuck into knots. While exploring friendly shapes and rubber-like bodies like children`s cartoon figures, my drawings twist these very flexible and cheering, forms made out of soap bubbles towards more ambiguous and complex shapes, close to textures of internal or genital organs.

I think the ambiguous, the confusing and the intuitive are inevitable, either in art or in life. That is why my work not only accepts these criteria but it jumps willingly towards them, driven by a positive attraction to them.