Sweet Asbestos
Please read this blog to know more about this project: http://sweetasbestos.blogspot.com
A new project at Meredith Keith Gallery, Toronto, Ont
Nov. 18th to Dec. 22nd, 2011.
Like an octopus, Cynthia Girard's pratice has many arms such as painting, installation, painted scuptures, text and performance. With this new project, Girard investigates the cumulative impacts of neoliberalism in Canadian recent history... Like an activist of the imaginary, her work borrows influences from popular culture, folk art, as well as art history that she grafts to sociopolitical issues. Sweet Asbestos is among other things a satire of national politics and the redistribution of richness. As a starting point she answers Joyce Wieland's Reason Over Passion seminal quilt artwork by painting a curious skunk sandwichman advertising : I love my country.
Satirical, Girard's new works drink bitterly in the fountain of recent politics Dancing on a narrow line, and with a strong sense of humour and sarcasm, she creates resilient narratives populated by animals and even minerals that are politically pro-active and even activists.
Cynthia Girard is a visual artist and a poet. She was born in 1969 in Montreal. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions including the Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina, La Centrale/Powerplant, Montreal, Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, le Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Space, London(UK), among others. She has recived the London international artist residency (CAC, 2005) and the Berlin artist residency (CALQ 2008). Her work has been exhibited in Canada, the US, Europe and China. She graduated from UQAM in 1995 and received a Master from Goldsmiths college in 1998. She currently lives in Montreal. Her most recent book J'ai percé un trou dans ma tête was published in by Héliotrope 2010. Sweet Asbestos is her first exhibition in Toronto.