Bilingual exhibition to shed light on Material Girls

A new Rodman Hall exhibition aims to help visitors experience Material Girls in a new way.

Colour Constructs/Constructions en couleurs, opening at the downtown St. Catharines art centre Thursday, Nov. 30, features works by students in Brock’s Visual Arts (VISA), Studies in Arts and Culture (STAC) and French Studies (FREN) programs.

The exhibition, curated by Brock Professors Catherine Parayre and Shawn Serfas, initiates a sophisticated dialogue with Material Girls, an ongoing exhibition that opened at Rodman Hall Sept. 14.

Material Girls is a large-scale group exhibition of work by Canadian and international emerging, mid-career and senior female artists from different artistic disciplines and cultures. Curated by a team from the Dunlop Art Gallery, a unit of the Regina Public Library, it explores material process and notions of excess as they relate to the feminized body, gendered space and capitalist desire.

For Colour Constructs, students reacted to words, colours and visuals directly related to Material Girls.

STAC students contributed nine texts based on words and expressions found in the curatorial statement of Material Girls; FREN students provided eight written fragments in French, describing colours from Material Girls; and VISA students, in their own paintings, reference the vividness of artwork presented in Material Girls.

In addition to the work of students, the exhibition will include a new large commission by local graffiti artist Mat Vizbulis, who describes his work as ‘genre graffuturism.’

“As the images unfold in layers, we understand that it is truly something unexplainable,” he said. “We are then daring to define things.”

Earlier this year, Vizbulis led Brock students in experiential learning about graffiti and its role in both high art and popular culture.

The opening reception of Colour Constructs/Constructions en couleurs takes place Thursday, Nov. 30 at 5 p.m. at Rodman Hall Art Centre, 109 St. Paul Cres. The exhibition will continue until March 4.

Material Girls continues at Rodman Hall until Dec. 30.

Admission to Rodman Hall Art Centre is free, although donations are accepted. For more information in French or English, visit ExperienceBU.


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