Passion Over Reason
September 14th to December 10th, 2016
Artist
Mark Clintberg
Opening Reception
Wednesday, September 14, 5 to 7 pm.
Curator
Gentiane Bélanger
Overview
As part of the New Voices series, the exhibition Passion Over Reason presents the work of Alberta artist Mark Clintberg. Intricate and profoundly meaningful, Clintberg’s artwork straddles different levels of discourse and relies on intimate connections, intellectual thought, and complex emotions. By way of traditional skills, industrial processes, art history references, language shifts, Clintberg mingles fragments of history, cultural anecdotes, and relational fictions in a series of semantically dense works. Beneath the surface lies a vast framework of exchanges and experiences that deepen our contemplation of the objects and extend well beyond their beauty. Clintberg’s work points to a range of ambiguities: the merging of professional and emotional dimensions in intersubjective relations, the blurred boundaries between art and craft, and the fluidity of identity within collectives and collaborative projects. Often linked to specific geographical and cultural contexts, the works in this exhibition span Canada metaphorically given their references and the locations where they were created. The frequent use of text, at times in both English and French, further anchors Clintberg’s artistic practice to the emotional and identity meanderings of communication. At once conceptual and contemplative, this body of work evokes stories that reveal our history, our identity, and our need to be connected with others.
The Foreman Art Gallery wishes to thank Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, Fogo Island Arts, Torys LLP as well as private collectors Pierre Trahan, Pascal Desjardins and Roxanne Arsenault for the generous loan of their works.
Artist
Documentation
Press Coverage
- Regarts Sherbrooke: an interview with Gentiane Bélanger on Mark Clintberg’s Passion Over Reason exhibition, MaTV, N/A.
http://matv.ca/sherbrooke/mes-emissions/regarts
- Espace de la diversité: an interview with Gentiane Bélanger and Brenna Filion on Foreman Art Gallery’s participation in La Semaine Sherbrookoise des rencontres interculturelle, “LA CULTURE CANADIENNE D’ANTAN: VISITE GUIDÉE ET CONFECTION DE COURTEPOINTES” as part of Passion Over Reason programming, MaTV, N/A.
http://matv.ca/sherbrooke/mes-emissions/espaces-de-la-diversite/videos/5170669541001
- Samantha Burns, Passion Over Reason presents love letters to the unknown, The Campus, Vol. 72, No.3. September 28, 2016. p.8