Robin Arseneault: Double Healing

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Image Courtesy of M.N. Hutchinson

Robin Arseneault, "Sad Cowboy," 2018

glaze & 24k gold lustre on ceramic, 17.5" x 13" x 2 3/4".

Opening Reception Friday, November 23 5-8

JHG is pleased to present Double Healing, a new solo exhibition by Calgary based, multidisciplinary artist Robin Arseneault. We invite you to join us on Friday, November 23rd between 5-8 PM for the opening reception when the artist is in attendance.

As the title of the exhibition suggests, Arseneault’s new series evokes a “doubling”. A doubling of image, material and meaning can be found throughout. On view are large scale photo collages and ceramic objects. All of these pieces can be viewed as the visual notion of the verbal ‘double entendre’; undertaking humour and sexual innuendos within the same reference. Here in this place of fissure is where Arseneault’s work defies categorization. A plate is no longer a plate; a rock is no longer a rock.

All of the work in the exhibition is the outcome of attending the Medalta International Artists in Residence Program in Medicine Hat, AB. Here she explored ceramic processes and the unique local landscape for the first time. Double Healing recontextualizes her tools of practice. The object, shape, material use and method are stripped of their expected history or context and have re-emerged as something else. These apparent methods of subversion are used to pair sculpture with photography: vintage images of Rodin’s erotic sculptures share the same 2D plane as ancient rock outcrops. These body-sized prints are at once visceral and formally intriguing.

Ceramic objects run adjacent to the photo collages. On view are eight clusters of plates, intimate in nature, with gestural mark-making in black underglaze and gold lustre. Their surfaces are adorned with suggestive imagery and are clearly rooted in drawing and the intuitive consideration of materiality. ‘Double Healing’ is also the name of a massage clinic, situated parallel to the Medicine Hat rail yard with seemingly extended hours of service.

Robin Arseneault is a graduate of the Alberta College of Art & Design (BFA, 1998) and the Edinburgh College of Art (MFA, 2005). A semi-finalist for the Sobey Art Award in 2007, she received the Lieutenant Govenor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award in 2008, and has been awarded numerous grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and Alberta Heritage. Robin has an active record of exhibitions including, Canada, the USA, Scotland, German, Italy, and the Netherlands. The artist is gratefully to the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Medalta International Artists in Residence Program for their support of this work.