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May 8-31
Auditorium Georges Brassens
Artistic Statement and Inspirations …
“One never knows quite when art takes over from nature.
Like the bison of Altamira, the rock is already bison before the painter becomes involved. It is this confusion which is also fusion, that I love.” Pierre Soulages
Catherine Tableau explains that in her work, her inner being is continually revisited by countries, landscapes, forms, people, objects, and musical influences that remain with her: the rock walls of a cave cloaked in wildness, and its magic and mysterious overtones; the twisted, contorted folds of the mountainsides of the Southern Alps, witness to the juddering of the earth; the tiny forsaken villages, encountered in the course of a day’s wanderings; the worn steps of my great-grandmother’s worn and beloved house, she herself worn, wrinkled, and beloved…
Her painting is inspired by imprints, textures, cracks, and relieves, a detail that catches her eye by its sensuality, calls for a touch or a caress.
On a wooden board, the plaster is urged into shape, a wall is molded with prints into it. Opened, wounded, traced, punctured.
A sacred territory is invented, with signs and symbols that she doesn't always yet understand.
In the course of these routine gestures, as accidental moves occur, and while she struggles and doubts herself, she is exploring texture and color.
At that point, a kind of ascese occurs, which includes an economy of means, the light and the physiognomic qualities of the relief coming with.
Opaqueness, transparency, color-washes.
Austere shapes, raw compositions, density.
Yet apertures are suggestive of movement through. Of elsewhere.
Lines and marks are like wounds, like deep scarring trenches, which then transform to pathway. Sanctuary even.
Through color, medium, she enters primitive territories. She aspires to evoke earth’s natural beauty from which we come from and will return.
Smooth surface, serene or chipped, peeling damaged testifies of the effect of time and ephemeral.
These “ walls” are for her an invitation to meditation, to stationary traveling.
As Antoni Tàpies says, each of her paintings is an attempt to “directly attain silence”.
About Catherine Tableau
Currently Executive Director of La Maison de la Francophonie de Vancouver, Catherine Tableau studied and worked for 20 years as a cultural mediator in Provence. She was in charge of creating and organizing performances with visual artists, musicians, directors, comedians and puppeteers.
She has been active in the field of jazz and electronic music, as well as being one of the founding members of la Scène de Musiques Actuelles (S.M.A.C.) '' La Tangente'' in Cannes, a program which aims at promoting non-classical music styles.
A self-taught artist, Catherine has presented her artwork frequently through collective or individual exhibitions in France and in BC.
After 8 years exploring materials and textures on a remote BC island, she returned to Vancouver in 2010 and took part in various projects, including some organized by the Conseil Culturel et Artistique de Colombie-Britannique, Francophone Arts Council.