On the occasion of Expozine’s 10th anniversary, La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse presents a discussion about the strong presence of women in silkscreening in Montreal and the role that zine culture has had on their individual practices as well as on the city’s contemporary art scene. The four speakers will elaborate on what drew them towards this medium, their influences, experimentations and how their work has evolved over time. The discussion will also reflect on how zines and silkscreening have been appropriated by contemporary art practices. Questions about the passage of underground, alternative and/or punk esthetics towards art institutions and the possible impacts of this institutionalization will also be addressed. Comments and exchanges with the public are encouraged so join us for an event during which we will better understand an important part of Montreal’s contemporary art scene that, while still under theorised, is undeniably influencial.

With :

Andrée-Anne Dupuis Bourret began a PhD in art theory and practices at Université du Québec à Montréal. Her work has been shown in several solo and group exhibitions in Canada and abroad. She also created thirty artist books which have been shown and collected on a national and international level. She is a member of several artist-run centres and president of the board of directors at Atelier Graff in Montreal. She is also a member of Grupmuv, a research and creation lab at UQAM for drawing and images in motion, and the instigator of two research blogs: Le cahier virtuel and Le territoire des sens.

Jacinthe Loranger has a B.A. in visual arts from UQÀM in 2001 and has been practicing printing arts for more than 10 years. She has made many artists books and installations where silkscreening is explored in all its possibilities. In the past eight years, she has done many artist residencies in Canada and France, notably at Dernier Cri. She has participated in several group exhibition, one of which was at La Centrale in 2010 and at the Galerie Colline (Edmonton, AB, 2009). She has also presented various solo exhibitions, notably at the Galerie Sans Nom (Moncton, NB, 2009), at the Artist Poof Gallery (Calgary, AB, 2011) and at l’Écart (Rouyn-Noranda, QC, 2011).

Chloe Lum has been collaborating with Yannick Desranleau under the name Seripop since 2002. A six year long field research in postermaking led them to produce immersive site specific installations inspired by the poster in its urban environment as an object of intervention. Using the colour in “totalitarian” fashion and designed like “territorial conquests”, their installations, crafted mostly from silk-screened paper, are based on the paradox of the paper’s fragility and the vastness of the space to be occupied. As in urban space, they create a tension between the viewing space and the spatial disorientation that such a paradox can cause. They have exhibited and given talks in Canada and abroad, and they are currently part of the Quebec Triennial 2011 at Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal.

Leyla Majeri is a musician and visual artist, living in Montreal. Under the pseudonym Alphonse Raymond, she has done several small books, zines and newspapers. With silkscreening as her prefered technique, her work explores different methods in order to manipulate colours and geometry inside a world in which games and amusement are used to allow imagination to triumph. Her drawings, sculptures and performances are recognized by the experimental art and music scene. Her work has been shown recently by the galleries Space 1026 (Philadephia) and La Centrale (Montreal). One of her animation is shown in the movie "Les religion sauvages" from Le Dernier Cri (France). She is currently experimenting the use of plants as natural dye-based inks for a mordern way of printing.

Dominique Pétrin is a performance and visual artist. She was first known for her anti-diplomatic performances in the music band Les Georges Leningrad. She is one of the pioneers of the new generation of silkscreeners. Her immersive environments establish intense dialogues between images, made of primitive motifs represented in loud colours, support and configuration. Since 2008, she is interested by hypnosis and uses it in performances that she realises with Georges Rebboh, as in the one they presented in this year’s Quebec Triennial. She has collaborated with Lynda Gaudreau, Pil and Galia Kollektiv, Jerusalem in my Heart and Sophie Calle. In her performances as well as in her silkscreened built environments, Pétrin uses procedures that can modify perception and consciousness, even by eluding cognitive processes by using a trance state of being.

La Centrale would like to thank Expozine for their support in this initiative.

Image by Leyla Majeri (Alphonse Raymond).