MELANIE AUTHIER | CONTRARIETIES & COUNTERPOINTS

The visually rich spaces in artist Melanie Authier’s paintings remind us that we are still negotiating a myriad of questions when we consider art after Modernism. For Authier, paintings are not simply discrete aesthetic objects. They exist within an expanded set of relations.

Authier’s paintings invoke language that is associated with Modernist Abstraction. Her approach has also been likened to Baroque, for the empathetic effects elicited by her technique. The intermingling of styles in each painting engenders a liminal quality that is at once intelligible yet elusive. In this exhibition of recent work on canvas and paper, we can appreciate the contrasting approaches to contemporary painting that are being deployed by the artist. With each work, Authier sets up a problem so that she can “produce a response to it that is unexpected.”

I believe my work references and, at times, wrestles with the after-burn of painting’s past, art history with a capital “A.” It also works to carve out a space for itself in current dialogues and continues to look at painting’s potential. So my preoccupying question is, “Where do we go from here?”
- Melanie Authier, 2015

Exhibition organized and circulated by Thames Art Gallery, Chatham, Ontario.

October 24 - December 9, 2017
Opening: Monday, October 23, 5:30 p.m. attended by the artist and the Curator.
Guided Tour on November 15 (starting at 5:30 p.m.).