in La Centrale's window at night during all of July !

La Centrale presents a summer series of video screenings throughout the month of July. The gallery’s store-front window will be the support for works dealing with issues of appearance and transformation, while revisiting certain stereotypes related to make-up and costume. Come by at dusk or at dawn to enjoy these works projected on La Centrale’s window -- now a giant screen!

RITUAL (OR SEMIOTICS OF MAKE-UP)

Noémi McComber

10m30s, DVD NTSC colour, 2001.

July 8 to 12, 2009

Ritual (or Semiotics of Make-up) examines the process and empowering nature of transformation through the ritual of applying make-up. Inspired by the English expression “to put your face on,” the artist systematically and methodically explores the beauty ritual, but the sequence goes astray and each element ends up out of place. The result is a sublimely grotesque tableau that questions the value of the act and of prevailing beauty canons. Ultimately, this piece is about the process of transformation and its potential for reaching beyond the appearance of the act’s final result.

Noémi McComber holds a Master’s in visual and media arts from Chelsea College of Art (2002) in London, UK. She has shown her work in Canada and in Europe, including at the Moscow Centre for the Arts (Russia), at Castlefield Gallery in Manchester and at the Kunstverein Kohlenhof in Nuremburg. She lives and works in Montreal.

LE FOND DES CHOSES

Chloé Lefebvre

5min, DVD NTSC colour, 2007.

July 15 to 19, 2009

In crossing interviews, five people transfigured by fantasy make-up expose some of their expectations, unintentionally revealing aspects of themselves.

Chloé Lefebvre has never limited herself to a single medium, producing work that freely combines video, photography, sculptural objects and installation components. Animated by a sense of irony and wit, her artistic approach reflects a constantly evolving series of reflections on daily life. A member and board director of Galerie Clark, Chloé holds a Master's degree in visual and media arts from the Université du Québec à Montréal.

BLUE FOTO, GREEN FOTO, RED FOTO

Justene Williams

8min (BF), 7min (GF), 3m33s (RF), DVD NTSC colour, 2005

July 22 to 26, 2009

In her work, Justene Williams uses wastefulness seen and left in the world. In Blue Foto and Green Foto, she presents a character moving endlessly against a backdrop of old images collaged on the wall of her studio. Wearing plastic that produced sounds surreally reminiscent of the rustling of nature, Williams transforms herself into a three-dimensional embodiment of the two-dimensional photograph – attempting to reanimate the photographic ‘still’.

In Red Foto, the viewer is witness to a character wearing a suit and mask glued and stitched entirely from abstract red photographs – two-dimensional photographic flatness attempts to embody three-dimensional form.

Photographing itself in a mirrored space and in turn re-photographing the photographs on the suit, the camera runs out of memory, the character begins to quicken its robotic dance moves and then finally tears itself off itself – thus deconstructing the fragmented self.

Justene Williams lives and works Sydney. She holds a Master of Visual Arts from Sydney College of the Arts, University of Sydney, and a Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts), University of Western Sydney, Nepean, and has studied at Bildenden Kunst, Vienna, Austria. Williams has held residencies in Tokyo and Rotterdam, and been involved in artist-run initiatives such as CBD Gallery, Sydney. Her work is held in state and national galleries of Australia as well as in private collections in Australia and Europe.

BLUE MOON

Stéphanie Chabot

DVD NTSC colour, 2007.

July 29 to August 2, 2009

Blue Moon presents a woman coldly displayed in virtual space. The soundtrack, based on an Elvis tune, initially evokes the romanticism and teenage melancholy of the fifties. Yet this feeling dissolves into a sense of ghostly isolation within virtual/digital space. Evoking beauty, pleasure, and desire, Blue Moon is a tender take on woman’s complex and sometimes contradictory situation within the myth of romance.

Multidisciplinary artist Stéphanie Chabot has presented her work in several artist-run centres in Canada and exhibited in Europe and the U.S. Having completed her Master’s degree at York University, Toronto, she is now back in Montreal where she lives and works.

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*Still photo taken of Red Foto video by Justene Williams

La Centrale would like to acknowledge the continual support of our artists, members, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts de Montréal and les Brasseurs RJ.