VANCOUVER: Catriona Jeffries Gallery: Valérie Blass

For Valérie Blass, things are not what they seem. Bod­ies become clothes, become cos­tume, become prop, become pho­to­graph, become pro­jec­tion, become paint­ing, become shadow, become sculp­ture. Through mate­r­ial and for­mal exper­i­ment, her pre­vi­ous work col­laged the fig­ure and abstract form, shapeshift­ing the weight of their respec­tive his­to­ries. In this new body of work she con­tin­ues to push this into a com­plex, inti­mate space between the pho­to­graphic image and sculp­ture.

Here, medi­ums adjust to each other when they meet. Bod­ies deform to an object. A form is deter­mined by a pho­to­graph. The image has become paint on a sculp­ture. A sculpture’s sur­face is cov­ered in pho­to­graphic emul­sion and exposed. Back­ground and fore­ground change dimen­sion. In To only ever say one thing for­ever the same thing we become impli­cated in the expe­ri­ence of look­ing, our bod­ies per­suaded to adjust to both the pho­to­graph and sculp­ture together. For Blass, the image is not enough.

IMAGE CREDIT: Valérie Blass, ‘To only ever say one thing for­ever the same thing,’ Instal­la­tion View, Catri­ona Jeffries, 2015.