Helene Girard: "Tribology"

Opening Reception: November 14, 7-10pm

TRIBOLOGY: By the medical definition, a branch of mechanical engineering that deals with the design, friction, wear, and lubrication of interacting surfaces (as bodily joints) in relative motion.

This exhibition concentrates on the study and effects of interacting movement through textures by associating an image on canvas, by means of acrylic or mixed medium. My work titles defines me by using the language of medicine. A terminology that has always fascinated me . Although my representation might have succumbed to a surrealistic approach in some cases, I am quite inspired with it and really enjoy breaking it down into phonetics.

From the bottom of my heart, I wish you a pleasant journey.

ARTIST’S BIOGRAPHY

GIRARD, Marie Hélène Jeanne Duthie, Born in an ambulance in St-Ludger de Milot, Québec, on the way to the hospital on September 17th, 1961. Hélène is the second of four children. Her parents affectionately nicked named her Lenie, a label that clearly identifies her today as a chosen signature for her works. She studied interior design in Saguenay Lac St-Jean and Art at Cégep du Vieux Montréal. She discovered Manitoba through a very self fulfilling and rewarding youth program known as KATIMAVIK and eventually made Winnipeg her home. Amongst the devotion to her art, she expresses interests in the medical field. Over the years, she has moved from wild life pen and inks, commission works on old cream cans, portraiture, to advertising art. Today she enjoys working with acrylics on large format canvases. She feels that large formats become more alive through the person looking at them. An inspired thought from a favourite quote « A painting only lives by the one who is looking at it. » (Pablo Picasso)

She has taught art in after school programs in Québec, has been guest artist at numerous rural events in Manitoba, has been mentioned in a published. Hope from tragedy> from <Muskoka Magazine > in Ontario. She has been present as a guest to celebrate a fund raising event “Jazz for child health BC” for Nanaimo General Hospital. Her work has been featured on the cover of Uniquely Manitoba catalog as she continues her exposure and perseveres in achieving her goals to become respectively known throughout her peers.

She is inspired by emotions and becomes her subject in order for her work to let out more feelings. She likes to simplify the complicated by having recognizable subjects. Some titles, at times, seem complicated but are enlightened on canvas by simple geometrical forms. There is a noticeable attention to texture and colours in her work. Somehow the overall result of her painting’s leaves us with a touch of curiosity.