News
Hydro-Québec’s Nuit blanche à Montréal goes green at Galerie CO
Key words: pop art, super tanker, recycled cardboard, disco lights, garbage. Discover how these elements come together in an ironic and eye-catching art installation at Galerie CO on Saturday, February 27, 2010, starting at 8 pm during Hydro-Québec’s Nuit blanche à Montréal, part of the MONTREAL HIGH LIGHTS Festival.
Galerie CO presents « Délicatesse néoplastique » a sculptural installation, created from recycled cardboard, by artist and filmmaker Guillaume Brisson-Darveau. Simple geometric shapes are employed to create the components of his piece animated with bold strobe lighting. Brisson-Darveau’s art is inspired by ideas related to urban culture and the environment. His work creates a strange and ambiguous universe imprinted with irony and infused with contradiction; it’s a cheeky wink at the beauty, the over-styling, and the flamboyance of capitalist society. « Délicatesse néoplastique » gives a strong nod to pop culture while creating a playful montage using some of the more banal objects of conspicuous consumption, waste management and recycling.
Galerie CO will also show festival goers Karine St-Arnaud’s whimsical universe of marionettes created from recycled objects. St-Arnaud creates a mixture of theatre, installation and performance art that defies traditional labels. Short performances begin at 8 pm. Catch one and treat yourself to a brief visit into her imaginary world of shadows and light.
Hot refreshments and snacks will be served.
Guillaume Brisson-Darveau is trained in the cinema and visual arts. Most recently he participated in the project Insertion at Ateliers Graff and completed a Masters in Visual Arts at the University of Laval. He was also part of a group of young filmmakers and artists who organised VIHsion, the HIV/Aids film festival, in November 2009, and has completed several projects related to the Web and experimental films. Brisson-Darveau’s art is inspired by personal experiences and the links with the milieu in which he lives. He is interested in concepts related to urban culture, art, the body and the environment.
After attending acting school, Karine St-Arnaud founded the theatre company, Le Théâtre de la Névrose!, where she refined her skills as an actress, wrote and produced plays, and explored her artistic vision. In 2009, she collaborated in staging a production of Max et les ogres with the group pentaèdre. It was her first venture into the world of puppetry. She created the puppets using recycled objects and brought them to life on stage. Following the success of Max et les orgres, St-Arnaud founded the puppet theatre company, Le Théâtre sous la main, through which she continues to explore the varied world of artistic creation.
For more info. go to: http://www.montrealenlumiere.com/volets/nuit_blanche/en_bref_en.aspx
Featured designer: Maude Lapierre
CO is proud to report on the recent success of designer Maude Lapierre at Le Salon des métiers d'art du Québec in December 2009.
Maude was awarded the Prix de la relève Jean-Cartier. This prize is offered each year to an artist exhibiting at the Salon, with less than five years of professional experience in their field. Maude won the prize for her originality, contemporary creativity and the bold approach of her jewellery. She was also awarded the Prix de la présentation visuelle d'un loft, for the visual presentation of her stand. Maude took home this prize for the beautiful presentation of her work at the Salon, which the judges believed perfectly reflected the innovation and high quality of her jewellery.
Congratulations Maude!
Winter specials!
Visit our sale section to receive savings of between 15% and 50% on selected objects.
Sale ends 31 January 2010.
Happy holidays from CO!
Thank you to everyone who helped make our holiday event a great success! We are pleased to report that we raised $1,227.50 for the Mission Bon Acceuil, and hope that this is the beginning of something that can become an annual tradition for CO as a way to give back to our city and those less fortunate in the community.
We wish all our friends and clients a wonderful holiday and a happy, prosperous and healthy New Year!
Christmas Tree: Extreme Makeover -- The Silent Auction
We would like to thank everyone who came out on Thursday night to celebrate the beginning of the holiday season at CO. And many thanks to the artists who generously agreed to be part of our Christmas Tree: Extreme Makeover project. They created an extraordinary collection of trees, which we were proud to show off.
The food was sensational, thanks to Anni Lawrence and her team (www.annilawrencecatering.com). The drinks also went down a treat! We rolled out the CO-tini, and it was a hit. Here's the recipe:
- 2 parts Iceberg vodka (distinctly Canadian)
- 1 part Hpnotiq (a cheeky French liquo, almost the perfect colour)
- A drop or two of Curacao Bleu (to adjust the colour)
- A good splash of Vermouth (because it's good)
Shaken, not stirred. Served on a little crushed ice with a garnish of wild blueberries.
Featured trees:
Ari Bayuaji: Java
To transform the Christmas tree for this project, I was inspired by nature. I am using vintage batik, a traditional hand-painted fabric from Indonesia. It is a fabric painted with motifs inspired by nature as such as stars, clouds, waves, and birds, in different colours. I hope this Christmas tree will bring joy and inspiration to keep a little place for nature in our everyday lives.
Size: 1 m. 83
Current bid: SOLD!
Michael Bishop: Big Brother
The intersecting planes in Milan’s A4Adesign's cardboard tree provided the point of departure for this project. Surveillance equipment and other devices that now typically adorn the walls of commercial and public establishments are reproduced and positioned on this Christmas tree. Big Brother is here to protect your presents; Big Brother is here to observe you...
Size: 1 m. 53
Current bid: SOLD!
Dagny Bock: Reflections on Christmas
What I like most about Christmas is how things start to sparkle. The lights sparkle. The snow sparkles. The wrapping paper sparkles. The cookies sparkle. And, of course, the trees sparkle. So, in using glass and mirror, which are materials I often use, I am hoping that the ambient light will be caught and make the tree shine and sparkle too. Shallow pleasures perhaps, but relatively simple ones too.
Size: 1 m. 53
Current bid: SOLD!
Guillaume Brisson-Darveau: Bijou
I transformed my Christmas tree by simplifying its form, with the use of straight lines. I then covered it in repetitive coloured forms, quickly, without thinking about it too much. This graphic composition, for me, evokes the feeling of high volume data flow and urban architecture, more so than typical Christmas decorations. On the other hand, the choice of colours and the form itself are amusing references to the ambience and magic of the holiday season.
Size: 1 m. 20
Current bid: SOLD!
Harlan Johnson: Entotree
This tree is a reflection on the ecology of the Christmas tree industry. An assortment of entomological characters that also make their living from the common tree species such as white pine, balsam fir and white spruce are featured. Cuddly critters such as Pine thrips, invasive Asian Longhorn beetles, Redhead Pine Sawflys, Spruce Budworm moths and other denizens of mono-culture Holiday tree stands are included. The inclusion of their botanical names presents them in a decoratively botanical way and is intended to dignify these co-citizens of the global food chain.
Size: 1 m. 53
Current bid: SOLD!
David Lafrance: L'arbre noir fortuné
Through the darkness of my Christmas tree, 32 hands appear, making a strange decoration. Adorned with jewels and bracelets, they form the elegant extremities of the branches of the tree. The hands represent the wealth of our country, in an illustrious display for the holiday season. My tree is a humorous caricature of a certain generation of men and women who sport these heavy ornaments, making their holiday-season wrists sore.
Size: 1 m. 83
Current bid: SOLD!
Amelia Robinson: Encore!
This is the story of a Christmas tree, brought into a home to be admired and loved and then disposed of. The tree has lives, each of which is of different value depending upon your particular interest. Similarly, those things in this story which come from trees are the result of human intervention and more valuable to those who made and consumed them than the trees from which they were made. And now they have become a tree again, to admire and to nestle presents against. Happy holiday season!
Size: 1 m. 53
Current bid: SOLD!
Michael Slack: Pic-bois
A Christmas tree in my household was always a very complicated adventure. I wanted to try and simplify the glowing beacon of little plastic balls, glitter, and presents of my childhood into something that better reflects what we are trying to do as a family today. It is no longer about mountains of toys and candy heaped under heavy branches. When everything is stripped away it is about a little piece of the natural world in our living room to gather around and adorn with small tokens of our love for one another.
Size: 1 m. 83
Current bid: SOLD!
Karine St-Arnaud: In your Bubble
Old toys piled up on one another in a church basement, a garage sale, a recycling centre. Old toys chosen, sorted, and assembled, to create a strange, fun and mysterious scene. A bunch of long stockings from the ‘70’s, found at a second-hand shop create miniature colourful canvases. Old telephone wires, reinstalled, keeps everything in touch. The result: bright Christmas bubbles for everyone, young and old. Every year, taking out the Christmas bubbles while listening to Bing Crosby or Madonna. Lighting up the tree at the end of the day, sipping egg-nog, or a martini. Making “Tuffles Porto” or “ragout de pattes de cochon” by the light of the tree. Being four, thirty-six, or sixty, and getting lost in your thoughts while putting the ornaments on your Christmas tree. Being told by your mother, partner or daughter: “You’re in your bubble, my love...” That’s what I wanted to recreate. Merry Christmas! This tree is dedicated to Stéphane St-Jean.
Size: 1 m. 83
Current bid: SOLD!
Ross Thompson: Christmas Pagoda
Just as the Silk Road historically linked East with West, this piece visually plays with the idea of bridging Eastern and Western cultures. Both Pagoda and Christmas trees are similar in form, wider at the base, becoming progressively narrower and culminating to one final point, aimed towards the sky. They are representations of the sacred and symbolise beacons for travelers. The four tiers of the silk and hemp panels are easily untied and can stored be flat along with the main cardboard support; ideal for wandering nomads. All materials used in this piece, with the exception of the LED lights and thread, are reclaimed from scrap bins.
Size: 1 m. 53
Current bid: SOLD!
Florence Victor: Nina
I was thinking of the meaning of Christmas, this idea of sharing and simplicity. I was inspired by the Russian soul (hence the name of my tree from Tchekhov’s play the Seagull), nostalgia and tradition and I thought of transforming my tree into a patchwork, recycling fabrics I already had.
Size: 1 m. 53
Current bid: SOLD!
Mackay Centre School: Happiness and Randomness
Two art classes from the Mackay Centre School for deaf and disabled children, under the initiative of their teacher, Daniel Wisebord, collectively decorated this tree, which they named “Happiness and Randomness.” These talented young artists ranged from 13 to 20 years of age.
The Mackay Center School promotes learning in an active and independent way undertaking projects that help students develop positive attitudes toward themselves and towards their community.
Size: 1 m. 53
Current bid: SOLD!
Bright Ideas: Innovations in Sustainable Lighting
Thursday, November 5 to Wednesday, November 18, 2009
As the Earth tilts farther away from the sun, we all feel it. Galerie CO thumbs its nose at the seasonal blahs with an illuminating look at sustainable lighting design by ten international designers working with recycled or renewable materials.
Drop by and find out what's elecrifying, current and sustainable in the world of lamps!
Applying light to an object animates it, gives it movement and warmth - illuminates its soul and highlights the very particular materials that are used to create it. It's that creative impulse that CO embraces. Bright Ideas will beam a warm glow into the Fall darkness, inviting Montrealers and those from farther afield to step into the light and discover the unique and beautiful treasures our artists have created.
We are proud to be showing work from some of the aritsts and designers that have been with us since the beginning and to introduce some new designers.
Featured designers:
Beehyv Arts - South Africa - recycled cardboard
Sandile B. Kula is an artist and a designer working in Cape Town, South Africa. Kula works closely with partners to design, produce, and implement the concept of responsible design through environmentally freindly products, social investment and economic development. Kula has fashioned his "Floppy" lampshades out of recycled corrugated cardboard to reveal multiple dimensions of light and shadow. These lampshades are inspired by the curves of the human body with the light within, suggesting that there is more beneath the surface of each one of us.
Michelle Brand - United Kingdom - recuperated plastic bottles
Michelle Brand is an eco-designer whose interest lies in sustainable waste management. In her "Cascade" collection, she uses a material which most people in the western world would perceive to be rubbish - used plastic soda bottles - to make beautiful pendant lights. She loves seeing desing opportunities where most people only see problems. Brand collects most of her material - about 100 to 150 bottles a week - from institutions near her home in Manchester, England. At her studio, she slices off the bottoms of the bottles, which resmeble flowers, and tags them together to form a decorative 'fabric' which she uses to make curtains and light shades.
Yaron Elyasi - Israel - recycled plastic
Yaron Elyasi is an industrial designer from Israel. Elyasi is known for his work, using recycled plastic, to create practical art design with a natural and organic character. Elyasi creates his dynamic and intriguing lights by recycling plastic from bottle caps, bottles and industrial and domestic waste. Fluid lines embrace functional form with these unique, one-of-a-kind pieces.
David Gardener - United Kingdom - recycled paper packaging
David Gardener lives and works as a designer in London, England, pursuing the development of objects that are conscious of their environment and employ new, more environmentally-friendly materials.Tthe 'Packaging Lamp' was designed in response to the artist's observations of how over-packaged so many products are. This lamp, which requires no packaging, is handmade from recycled paper pulp (much like the pulp used in the packaging industry). The stem of the lamp is reminiscent of forms seen in traditional wooden lamps, but is in itself the packaging for the electrical components of the lamp.
Ronel Jordaan - South Africa - hand-felted Merino wool
Ronel Jordaan is an internationally recognized award-winning felt artist who lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. By patiently rubbing and coaxing threads of pure wool into shapes in nature, she found her direction and started a small home industry, which now employs 40 previously unemployed women who have been trained to become felters of international standing. Elegant and whimsical, Jordaan's life-sized felted sheep floor lights are Jordaan's latest creation.
Patricio Lix Klett - Argentina - recycled plastic wicker
Patricio Lix Klett is an industrial designer from Argentina with a studio in Buenos Aires where he incorporates innovative materials and forms, using meticulous craftsmanship, into contemporary, functional objects. Klett's Mauro lamps are made of recycled plastic wicker. Each lamp is woven by one person, two hands, one lampshade at a time. Klett is a member of the Brazilian-based environmentally conscious design company Touch.
Heath Nash - South Africa - recuperated plastic objects
Heath Nash is a South African artist and product designer who uses plastic garbage to make sophisticated and beautiful lighting. Among his most recent designs is the Decorex table lamp, which uses recycled containers and other objects, in their original form, to shed light on everyday plastic waste.
OllyMolly - South Africa - recycled paper
OllyMolly is a small company based in Paarl, South Africa, who design and produce woven handbags and household items out of recycled and recyclable paper materials. This collection of shades, made from recycled paper represents a new direction for OllyMolly. Employing the same techniques that they have mastered in their line of bags and document holders, they have weaved together paper from magazines, menus and maps, to create visually stunning large pendant shades, and smaller colourful table-top lamps.
Streetwires - South Africa - wire and papier mache
Streetwires is a Fair Trade accredited enterprise that provides sustainable employment opportunities for many formerly unemployed men and women in the dynamic field of African wire and bead art. Whimsical yet sophisticated, the antelope, rhino, and zebra "light boxes" are made by hand using galvanized wire frames, which are then covered in papier mache, where layer upon layer of tissue paper is applied to the frame. Each layer has to dry in the sun before the next layer can be applied.
Studio Verissimo - Portugal - reused coffee stir-sticks
Cláudio Cardoso and Telma Veríssimo are up-and-coming artists from Portugal, who together have formed Studio Veríssimo, where things are hand-made, with love, and with a sense of humour. The "Spoon" lamp is made from reused coffee stir-sticks, once used in a local coffee shop, discarded, and given a second life by Cardoso and Veríssimo in this luxurious chandelier.
Re-vive Legs, exclusively in Canada at CO!
We already LOVE the chairs, created from plastic garbage. Richard Liddle at Cohda has just released his latest innovation: Re-vive table legs. Manufactured in the UK from previously redundant production equipment, the patented legs offer a unique furniture solution.
Attached and removed within seconds and without the need for expertise or tools, the legs can be used to produce a variety of permanent and semi pernanent tables, in various scale, depth and surface diameters. In fact, make a table out of any solid flat surface: an old door, a scrap of plywood, a piece of glass, or even a book! The Re-vive table legs can be attached to most rigid waste materials and can be endlessly reused to create uniquely sustainable pieces of furniture.
Let the sun Shine Shine in!
This summer, we have added several new lines to CO. Some of our new lines have come about as a result of my sister Harriet's winter odessey to the Western Cape of South Africa -- on a mission from CO. Others have come from news closer to home and designers who have found us.
Many are familiar with the felt work of Berkeley, California-based industrial designer, Josh Jakus. His new line, FUZ, continues to explore the relationship between form and function with intelligence and humour -- using materials in their simplest form. On the other side of the globe, in Cape Town, South Africa, Tracy Rushmere has created a range of fabrics that draw from traditional African textiles -- with a contemporary and funky twist. Her eclectic and eccentric fabrics, and the bags, aprons and cushion covers that she creates from them tell a range of interesting stories. We are very pleased to be working with Tracy, an independent, small-scale designer of flamboyant and humerous pieces with a large-scale dose of soul.