Renée Duval “Devotions”
to
Herringer Kiss Gallery 101-1615 10 Avenue SW, Calgary, Alberta T3C 0J7
Renée Duval, “Neferfiti,” 2017
oil on canvas, 52” x 56”
Opening Reception Thursday, March 8th from 5 to 8 pm. Artist in Attendance.
For her exhibition entitled Devotions at the Herringer-Kiss Gallery, Renée Duval presents a recent series of large paintings. For many years Renée has used the image of the tree in her paintings as a way to explore ideas about a sense of presence and the natural world. Since 2011 Duval has created paintings of symmetrical trees that she paints from photo-collages. The resulting works are somewhat hallucinatory - both resolutely realistic as well as supernatural.
In her most recent work, this symmetrical plant life has been formed into a series of large heads that are both explicit and implied. These “portraits” are iconic in their presentation and totemic in their symmetry. Duval’s paintings have long been characterized by a fidelity to the alchemy of representational painting as well as a passionate engagement to the language of painting. As a painter, she is strongly influenced by both western and non-western art history.
The paintings that are part of the exhibition Devotions occupy a space between two opposing perceptions that emphasize the mutability of perception and allow a reconciliation between the banal and the miraculous.