We continue our series of artist profiles with Patrick Bérubé, who is currently showing his work as part of the exhibition Objet de tous les désirs at Galerie SAS.
About the artist
Bérubé masters the art of visual paradox, creating humorous, poignant objects by combining everyday objects in unexpected ways.
From the artist’s statement:
Playing with both desire and envy, it is with a tint of irony and humor that I question our behaviors and our reactions faced with various situations of helplessness and lost of control. Looking to eradicate pleasure as much as to produce it, I seek to outsmart the expectations in order to extract a part of anxiety and mystery from it. The goal is to activate, within the spectator, a series of punctual stimulations and small (often) misleading distresses. This way, I create circular motions, round trips, uncertainties and discontinuities that destabilize and break the linear and general conception of the world. Space and site play a very important role in my work as much in the creation process than in the work itself. Being able to build paradoxes and create ambiguities, the integration to the site allows me to reach and overcome prescribed limits. My works are offered as spaces of resistance and of breaking point with the standards and conventions, giving them sometimes an unexpected dimension.
About the artist’s work in the exhibition Objet de tous les désirs
« The object is becoming more and more present in contemporary art. » Of course this term of ‘’the object’’ tends to qualifiy all art objects and all artworks. However, by organizing this exhibition, which features the works of ten artists, the gallery aims to highlight the importance and the contemporary artistic power of the object, which is linked closely to commodity goods, those for daily use, the banal, the functional, those for recollection, the decorative trinket, or the artifact.
This tension between content and container takes shape differently in Patrick Bérubé’s “pillowâ€, where he intends to combine comfort and discomfort. The coziness of a pet animal is displaced towards uneasiness as the pet becomes an object ; stuffed and photographed.
(from the gallery website)
Galerie SAS, space 416
Catherine Bolduc, Chloé Desjardins, Patrick Bérubé, Guillaume Labrie, Laurent Craste, Peter Gnass, Karine Payette, Véronique La Perrière M., Eric Cardinal, Shelley Miller
Objet de tous les désirs
June 7 – August 25, 2012
www.galeriesas.com
