David Smalley

Two Lines Vertical

2009

To Chicago-based artist Patrick Fitzgerald, his miniature car sculptures are a means of traveling through time. Born from a fascination with the soap box derby cars of his youth, each vehicle is an exercise in imagining the future through the lens of the past – or vice versa. Built from found materials collected over the years, the car's futuristic form is layered with personal memories and keepsakes from the past. The most minute of details is always intentional – from the weathered finish to the fictitious sponsor to the miniaturized furnishings of the cramped interior. This sculptural car entitled "Pylon Trunk" is intended as a complement to the rest of Fitzgerald's imaginative cars, something of a service vehicle loaded with removable traffic cones and street signs. A simple truck bed...

With its meticulous attention to detail, Karine Payette’s work opens up numerous reflections on the different ways we perceive reality. Payette achieves this by adroitly evoking the notion of doubt. Both playful and offbeat, her universe is built up from stripped-down stagings that conjure up private, domestic stories, and scenes from everyday life. Carefully arranging objects in space, she creates “zones of anxiety” where different elements overlap: loss of control, domination, and forms that might themselves take over. The artworks brought together in L’ombre d’un doute highlight the various touchstones of the multidisciplinary practice Karine Payette has been developing since 2010. The exhibition borrows its title from the Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name (Shadow of a Doubt), where a young girl discovers the dark side of the world. This shadowy reference evokes the fragrance of mystery that wafts among Payette’s works, and the need to decipher, like a riddle, that which takes place before our eyes. As soon as he/she enters the exhibition, the viewer is confronted with a puddle of milk covering the floor, in which he/she finds several kernels of floating Rice Krispies...

'We surround ourselves with elements from nature in the form of manicured lawns, sculpted trees, and our domesticated companions. We bend the natural world to our tastes and create a...

'We surround ourselves with elements from nature in the form of manicured lawns, sculpted trees, and our domesticated companions. We bend the natural world to our tastes and create a...

'We surround ourselves with elements from nature in the form of manicured lawns, sculpted trees, and our domesticated companions. We bend the natural world to our tastes and create a...

'We surround ourselves with elements from nature in the form of manicured lawns, sculpted trees, and our domesticated companions. We bend the natural world to our tastes and create a...