Libby Hague lives and works in Toronto, Ontario. She studied fine art at Concordia and has participated in various print residencies and exchanges in Quebec.  Her recent exhibitions include being natural at the Durham Art Gallery, One step at a time at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, Everything needs everything which has been shown in a number of iterations across the country, as well as two installations presented at the 6th Novosibirsk International Biennial of Contemporary Graphic Art (2009) in Siberia.  She won the 2009 Open Studio National Printmaking Award and is featured in the British book, Installations & Experimental Printmaking by Alexia Tala.  Her previous solo exhibitions in Quebec include shows at ARPRIM, Engramme, Vu and Articule.  She looks forward with pleasure to returning to Quebec with this new work.

Libby Hague works primarily in print installation.  Moving with fluidity from woodcut print to sculpture, she creates immersive metaphorical environments adapted to each venue.  In her recent work, she has developed a very particular vocabulary, applying and mingling print techniques and delicate crafts to a variety of common/industrial materials, from cardboard boxes to rope, pipe cleaners and plastic.  Through her imagery, she weaves an uneasy web of references, moving between animals and advertisements, flowers, garbage, human figures, and many unnamed things.  This mélange of materials and symbols is lovingly crafted in its details. Yet the vues d’ensembles, although often imposing in scale, seem fragile and precarious.

In the exhibition at La Centrale, a large wave of printed paper acts as metaphor for catastrophe.  The suggested narrative is one of disaster presented as the inevitable outcome of both over consumption and greed.  However, Hague also focuses on a potential for re-growth:«The rolling wave is also a birch bark raft. It is the marriage of Hokusai's Wave and the Raft of the Medusa with the two elements, disaster and rescue, literally woven together.  It thus underscores our interconnectedness and personal vulnerability.» -Hague

In unison with her DIY (do it yourself) approach to crafts and construction, Hague’s suggested story advocates working at human scale, with the means at hand, but without shying away from grandiose achievements: « A woman begins by carrying a mouse to safety - then a human being.  So we move forward together to accomplish our most daunting and ambitious projects ». -Hagues