Escape Attempt
Catherine Bolduc
Born in Val-d'Or, Quebec, in 1970
2016
Clear polyester film, LED lights, MP3 player, speakers, tables, turntables, chair and various objects
Soundtrack by Kerim Yildiz
Loan, private collection
31.2017
A graduate in art history and visual arts, Catherine Bolduc is interested in the fabulous and exotic. Her artistic approach plays simultaneously with illusion and disillusion. She creates her works by delving into childhood memories, literature and the many trips she has taken to Turkey and Asia. Escape Attempt was inspired by a storyline from the famous futuristic novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1894-1963): having encountered nature's immensity, the heroes Bernard and Lenina are unsettled by what they discover, which stands in stark contrast to their controlled and predictable world. Bolduc's installation reflects the literary work's two realities: at first we see a mysterious, sublime landscape in cast shadow, then make out that it results from light projections cleverly arranged on to everyday objects.
Bolduc's landscape flirts with still life, inviting a double reading, between light and shadow, of regular objects imbued with poetry and mystery. Similarly, in his Still Life with Shells and Coral (1640), Jacques Linard devises a setting composed of curiosities from the sea in a studied manner, much like inside the study of an avid collector. Still lifes were very popular for their moral and intellectual meanings in the seventeenth century. Coral - considered mirabilia, or marvel of nature - was thought to repel the "evil eye". Its blood vessel-like shapes symbolized Redemption through the blood of Christ. Linard contrasts the spiritual (with the coral) and the temporal (with the pearly shells suggestive of luxury and sensuality).
Escape Attempt
Catherine Bolduc
Born in Val-d'Or, Quebec, in 1970
2016
Clear polyester film, LED lights, MP3 player, speakers, tables, turntables, chair and various objects
Soundtrack by Kerim Yildiz
Loan, private collection
31.2017
A graduate in art history and visual arts, Catherine Bolduc is interested in the fabulous and exotic. Her artistic approach plays simultaneously with illusion and disillusion. She creates her works by delving into childhood memories, literature and the many trips she has taken to Turkey and Asia. Escape Attempt was inspired by a storyline from the famous futuristic novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1894-1963): having encountered nature's immensity, the heroes Bernard and Lenina are unsettled by what they discover, which stands in stark contrast to their controlled and predictable world. Bolduc's installation reflects the literary work's two realities: at first we see a mysterious, sublime landscape in cast shadow, then make out that it results from light projections cleverly arranged on to everyday objects.
Bolduc's landscape flirts with still life, inviting a double reading, between light and shadow, of regular objects imbued with poetry and mystery. Similarly, in his Still Life with Shells and Coral (1640), Jacques Linard devises a setting composed of curiosities from the sea in a studied manner, much like inside the study of an avid collector. Still lifes were very popular for their moral and intellectual meanings in the seventeenth century. Coral - considered mirabilia, or marvel of nature - was thought to repel the "evil eye". Its blood vessel-like shapes symbolized Redemption through the blood of Christ. Linard contrasts the spiritual (with the coral) and the temporal (with the pearly shells suggestive of luxury and sensuality).