Aude Moreau installs “Tapis de sucre 3” (2008) at Darling Fondry in 2008 © Aude Moreau
Last night the multidisciplinary artist was made recipient of the first edition of a yearly prize given to women from Powerhouse Gallery.
Aude Moreau is a French-born artist living and working in Montreal since the early 90s, who just recently completed her MA in Visual and Media Arts at UQAM. Moreau is also one of the recipients for this year’s Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art. From 2000 she has accumulated an impressive body of work including the installations series “Tapis de sucre†(2006/2008) and “Tirer le ciel (Shooting the Sky)†(2005–2010). The diversity of Moreau’s work also incorporates media, performance and video, often employing everyday consumer materials of ephemeral qualities. Stemming from routine experiences, her work evokes contradictory notion of loss and attainment, in confrontation with the alienating forces of culture and consumerism. So far she has exhibited in Quebec, France, USA and Luxembourg.
Iinstallation view at Darling Fondry, 2008 “Tapis de sucre 3” (2008) sugar, coal, pigment 8 x 20 m© Aude Moreau. Photo by Guy L’heureux
Detail from “Tapis de sucre 3” (2008) © Aude Moreau. Photo by Guy L’heureux
The Powerhouse Prize celebrates mid-career female artists who continue to contribute in a significant and sustained way to the cultural life of the city of Montréal. This award is integral to the mandate of La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse, an artist-run centre committed to providing a platform for practices grounded in feminist discourse, gender theory, cultural diversity and multidisciplinarity.
For its very first edition, La Centrale received 23 applications in total, each contending artist needing a nomination from an established member of Montreal’s cultural scene, to meet the prize’s criteria. An external jury produced a shortlist of three finalists, among which included Marie-Claude Bouthillier and Marie-France Brière. The jury was composed of Anne Bertrand (artistic coordinator for the Centre des Arts Actuels Skol), Valérie Blass (visual artist, past winner of the Prix Graff and Prix Louis-Comtois), Monika Kin Gagnon (writer and assistant professor of Concordia University’s communications department), Isa Tousignant (senior editor for enRoute magazine and contributing editor for Canadian Art magazine) and Sarah Watson (curator, part-time instructor of Art History at Concordia University and special projects director of Musée McCord)
Aude Moreau received CA$5,000 cash prize and was invited to deliver an artist’s talk, coming up soon at La Centrale.
Detail from “Tirer le ciel” (2005) bullet impact on gypsum © Aude Moreau. Photo by Guy L’heureux
“Sortie” (2010). Installation view from Nuit Blanche, February 2010. © Aude Moreau.
For more information about Aude Moreau, please visit her website: www.audemoreau.net
Founded by women’s movements in 1973, La Centrale is one of the longest running artist centres in Quebec. For more info: www.lacentrale.org
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Aude Moreau remporte le 1er prix Powerhouse [Cyberpress.ca]