“Alex Garant “Proprioception”
June 24th – July 30th, 2017
Opening Reception: Saturday, June 24th, 2017, 6-8pm
*The artist will be in attendance
Northport, NY– Haven Gallery is honored to present “Proprioception”, a solo exhibition of new artwork by Canadian based artist Alex Garant. “Proprioception” is Garant’s first solo show with the gallery and will include paintings, drawings and handmade, stamped prints featuring her quintessential double eyed portraits. “Proprioception” translates in latin to “one’s own” or “individual” and is a term used to describe the sensory information that contributes to the sense of position of self and movement; this involves both complex and regular motor skills and activity both of which may stem from the unconscious and conscious mind. This concept applies to Garant’s work through both the execution of such visuals via the artists hand and mind along with the unique and challenging reactions by her viewers.
Garants work can be defined not just by her signature double eye portraits of women but by her use of color, design, shape and play on symmetry. Utilizing modern tools of visual aesthetics along with traditional elements of portraiture stimulate, overwhelm and intrigue the viewer.
“My new work explores the vivid world of traditional portraiture coupled with my signature double-exposed figures. This body of work is finding cohesion via its subjects but offers great variance through colours and contrasts. Each piece is meant to evoke a unique experience in its own context. By overstimulating the audience and saturating canvases in visual stimuli, my new body of work embraces overwhelming overstimulation and flirts with a seducing confusion.”
The double exposed nature of each portrait harks to antique and contemporary methods of photography and are also suggestive of the historic movements in art such a futurism and op art. The hallucinogenic qualities of Garant’s work create an optical reaction resulting in an individualized experience. Capturing a moment of perpetual motion through perhaps humans most telling body part, the eyes, playfully provokes the viewers sensory experience. This illusionary effect of motion offers a glimpse of the multifaceted and oftentimes multi-self trait to humanity, both that of one’s own volition as well as the latent workings of the subconscious and unconscious mind.
ABOUT ALEX GARANT
Queen of Double Eyes, Alex Garant studied visual arts at Notre-Dame–De-Foy College just outside Quebec City. After graduating in 2001, she ultimately settled in Toronto, Canada. She decided to truly commit to her passion for Arts after suffering from a heart attack in 2012, changing forever how she would see the world.
Her alla prima oil paintings offer a graphic quality combined with traditional portrait techniques. Garant uses patterns, duplication of elements, symmetry and image superposition as key elements of her imagery. Alex Garant’s paintings are certainly conversation pieces as they are meant to engage the observers into an image investigation process and hopefully enlist their senses differently while doing so.
Alex has shown works in Art Galleries all over Canada and the U.S., Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York as well as Australia and Portugal. Her works also been shown at The Fullerton Museum and The Lancaster Museum of Art and History (MOAH) in California. She has been featured on CBC in a mini documentary about Contemporary Canadian Artists and her works have been seen in Magazines including: BAZAAR, Le Petit Voyeur, Tattoo Fest Magazine, The Art Education Journal , Beautiful Bizarre Magazine and on multiple online platforms including: VICE, The Huffington Post, Mashable.com, BUzznet, ViralNova, Tory Burch Trends and many more.
