22 March to 21 April 2012
Opening Thursday 22 March from 6 to 8

Manon De Pauw
Ordinary Matter

Diaz Contemporary is pleased to present Manon De Pauw’s first exhibition with the gallery.  De Pauw’s work involves an exploration of the relationships between images and performative presence.  Drawing from the conditions of photography, film, video, and other image-making technologies, particularly in the realm of light and shadow, she creates meditative, intriguing and luminescent compositions.  Her use of time, transparency and movement serve to push our understanding of images beyond the constraints of a two dimensional plane, and the viewer becomes lost between space, object, and surface

L’arena is a video diptych that plays on the flow and form, appearance and disappearance of a group of performers behind a translucent screen. Through their strange task, they reveal in real time the creation process of an image in constant motion.  

The title of the Ordinary Matter series comes from the cosmological term defining all that is visible in the universe, including our own bodies. These human scale photograms are the result of light illuminating the shape of different objects on the surface of the photographic paper.

Manon De Pauw has held exhibitions at the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris (2012), the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (2011), Cambrige Art Galleries (2010), the Southern Alberta Art Gallery (2010), Galerie de l’UQAM (2009), Optica (2007), and Trinity Square Video (2007), among others. Her work has been shown in numerous events in Canada and abroad, such as the MACM Quebec Triennial 2008, Festival TransAmériques (2008), and the 8è Bienal de video y nuevos medios de Santiago 2007 (Chili). It can be found in the collections of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, and the Collection d’œuvres d’art de l’UQAM. In 2010, she was guest curator at the MACM for the series Point of vue on the Collection. In 2011, she was shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award. She has toured world wide with Danièle Desnoyers and her dance company Le carré des Lombes, as a collaborator and video-performer. She lives and works in Montreal, teaches at Concordia University and is also represented by Galerie Division.