Isabelle Menin: Focus Exhibition
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Bau-Xi Gallery Vancouver 3045 Granville St, Vancouver, British Columbia V6H 3J9
Isabelle Menin, "Avant que le monde ne rut foi," 2020
archival lightjet print mounted on archival substrate, framed in grey with plexiglass, multiple editionsizes
Isabelle Menin: Focus Exhibition
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 4, 2-4 pm
Belgian photographer Isabelle Menin (b. 1961, Brussels) refers to her photographs as ‘disordered landscapes’; composed of found images and original photographs, Menin juxtaposes her floral subject matter with her skillful use of digital manipulation to create vignettes imbued with playful artifice.
Evocative of a wide range of references, from dutch still life and cut-paper collages to chintz fabrics, Menin explores what she terms 'nature's strange complexity' with a keen awareness for the dichotomies of light and shadow, truth and fiction.
Informed by her background as a painter and illustrator, the painterly nature and graphic sensibility of Menin’s approach reinterprets her natural imagery as source material for mark-making; abstracted and reoriented, the petals and stems abundant in Menin’s compositions become a means to enact disembodied gestures.
Through Menin’s process, these expressive forms coalesce into layered transparencies and riotous arrangements, harnessing a sense of dynamic movement and visual force to realize the artist’s fervent exploration of the uncanny and sublime.
Isabelle Menin
Born in 1961, Isabelle Menin lives and works in Brussels and is a graduate of the Graphic Research School (ERG) in Brussels. Menin has a background in painting, graphic design and illustration and has exhibited internationally in numerous art fairs and museums, including the the Belgium Modern Art Exhibition , Hongqiao Museum in Shanghai, China, OFF Art Fair – Brussels, Kunstraï – Amsterdam, MIA Fair - Milan – Italy, Setup Contemporary Art Fair, Bologna – Italy, Fotofever - Carrousel du Louvre - Paris - France, and FLORA, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Mons, Belgium.