THE ANECDOTAL AND THE ABSTRACT (AFTER L.A.)

 
 
 

PATRICK MIKHAIL GALLERY in Montréal is pleased to present THE ANECDOTAL AND THE ABSTRACT (AFTER LA), a new body of work by Quebec artist JENNIFER LEFORT.  Following a successful PEZ Limited residency in Los Angeles, California over the summer of 2016, Lefort returns to Patrick Mikhail to launch the gallery’s fall exhibition programme.  In her third solo exhibition with the gallery, the artist presents a new series of paintings and sculptures inspired by her LA research.
 
Following her PEZ Limited residency Lefort writes: “There is an uncertain freedom that accompanies temporary relocation.  New experiences are lived, new communities made, and new explorations complete with failures and discoveries are devised. The anonymity of relocation somehow fuels the mind, giving a refreshed voice to ideas of the past, fusing them with current obsessions and preoccupations.
 
This exhibition is born of that sort of scenario.  Here both paintings and sculptures share a similar interest in the use of space.  Gestures and lines exist differently between the 2D and the 3D work, but echo back to one another nonetheless. In this ongoing exploration some ideas are new and some have haunted me for years. Behind these ideas is a sincere desire to question and to build upon what abstraction is made of.  Abstraction does not manifest from thin air, it is born from the combination something and nothing all at once. The works in this exhibition each have a start and an end, but hopefully hover long enough somewhere in between, in some temporary relocation, that they fulfill that potential of abstraction being more.”
 
In her professional practice, Jennifer Lefort explores contrast, space and the use of color through abstract painting and sculpture. She deftly probes the coexistence and codependence of formalism and expressionism, color field and pattern, structure and disorder, depth and flatness, and failure, accidents and intuition. Her practice garnered her the prestigious Joseph Plaskett Foundation Award in painting, and a finalist position in the 2007 RBC Canadian Painting Competition. In recent years, she has shown her work in solo and group exhibitions in Canada and internationally. Of significant note are solo presentations at Volta New York 2014 and Volta 11 Basel in 2015, a temporary public artwork commission for the MACL museum in Quebec, as well as solo exhibitions with Patrick Mikhail Gallery in Montreal and at the Galerie UQO (institutional) in Gatineau. The artist has upcoming exhibitions and presentations in Montreal and Los Angeles in 2017, and with Mindy Solomon Gallery in Miami.  Lefort completed an Honours BFA at Concordia University in Montréal, and received her MFA from York University in Toronto.