FR

Session 6
Isabelle Pauwels

On May 29, 2014 at 6:30 pm

The artist presents her work and her artistic practice in the context of her exhibition running from May 29 to July 12.

The SESSION will be followed by the opening at 8 pm

I don’t want to end up with something I already know

Some intellectual systems exist ready-made, just plug and play. We know how they work before we even set them in motion. These systems, with their well-known structures, endlessly repeat the same truths, confine us to the same roles, encourage the repetition of the same never-ending clichés. These more or less frozen schemas are something like Isabelle Pauwels’ raw materials. By submitting them to examination, then cutting them up and putting them back together in a very elaborate manner, she seeks to break them while at the same time ensuring that we are still able to recognise them.

Through an intense exploration of mise en scène, filming and especially montage, Pauwels’ videos reconfigure popular genres such as sitcoms, home movies and documentaries. The blend of performance and documentary realism shines light on the tense relations that exist in her work between narrative convention and everyday social interaction.

Isabelle Pauwels was born in Kortrijk, Belgium and lives in New Westminster, British Colombia. She obtained a bachelor’s degree from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in 2001 and in 2006 completed a master’s degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She works mostly in video but also in sculpture, the book and printmaking. Her work explores the history of television, colonial exploration narratives and the culture around television reality shows and has been exhibited widely at venues such as The Power Plant (2011), Western Front (2013) and as part of the National Gallery of Canada’s exhibition Storytelling. In 2013, she was a finalist for the Sobey Art Award. She is represented by the Catriona Jeffries gallery.