Diversion

Materials :
Aluminum, aluminum powder, digital image, engine, plaster, wood
Dimensions :
Variable
Medium :
Sculpture, installation, digital image

Context :
Solo show at the Plein Sud Exhibition Center in Longueuil, from March 4th to April 13th, 2008.

With his solo show titled Diversion, Marc Dulude focuses on volatile phenomena such as smoke, fog, and dust. Even if the exhibition is to be understood as a whole, the works can be divided into two sets. The first is comprised of a photograph representing a forest, filled with mysterious effects of mist and light. Echoing this work, a white megalithic sculpture contains a video. What the visitor can see, behind a cloud of smoke, are more light effects than legible images. Similarly, the second corpus is made up of a sculpture and photographic images. Enigmatic in nature, these images are not easy to decode; we can make out feet, sand dotted with tracks giving the appearance of lunar soil, reflections of light, eddies, and blurred areas. As a metaphorical reply to these photographs, a sculpture is placed on the ground. On a metal plate which has been worked in such a way as to suggest the patterns of a lake bottom, the artist has placed plaster dust. Two motors make the surface vibrate and cause the grains to form ever changing patterns that at times evoke the comings and goings of sand on a beach, and at other times the drift of continents, waterfalls, or mounds. The artist invites us first and foremost to live an experience rather than to simply see artworks. He shakes our perceptual markers, throwing us off-balance in order to propel us into a playful, intriguing, and fascinating space.