BLINKERS

.. accelerating the appearance of things only touched upon by the lens with the heat of your hand..

— Carlo Mollino, Message From the Darkroom

A collage-based exhibition including works in paper, celluloid, and sound, Heat of a Hand is unified by the artists’ common interest in a context-disregard for certain spaces approaching them in unprescribed ways. This disregard is in part the effect of a prioritization of materials and the formal process of working by hand. It’s an approach that by virtue of its exercise, treats entities such as architecture, the artist’s studio, and public and private space, as chiefly raw material.

Working in collage, the artists use similar processes of image and frame reconstruction, working through trial and error, ultimately creating an object that has little or no tonal relationship with the original, even when the original source is legible. The hand guides the labour, and the heat of the hand ie the intuition of work—leaves its mark, disinterested in logic or predetermination.

Vermette’s celluloid collages emphasize imprecision over precision, and a flattening of spatial value, as in her reconstruction of Carlo Mollino’s interior apartment from fragments of her own studio space. Parenteau similarly restructures real spaces, taking raw and found images of buildings, bodies, and exteriors, rearranging and fragmenting them into corrected versions, and transforming the real into a vivid unreal. Bindi psychedelifies public buildings that hold the power of capital based on qualities of luminance and reflectivity rather than architectural values, invading their spaces by resurfacing them with the surroundings they are blind to.

In the basement audio space, the artists bring together three separate three-minute recordings developed in isolation and brought together simultaneously, each using the originating concept of the heat of a hand—inherently small-scale, intuitive, and physical.

Rhayne Vermette was born in Notre Dame de Lourdes, Manitoba. It was while studying architecture at the University of Manitoba, that she fell into the practices of image making and storytelling. Primarily self taught, Rhayne's films are opulent collages of fiction, animation, documentary, structuralist experimentalism, and reenactments. Her work has screened internationally at diverse occasions including Festival du Nouveau Cinema, Images Film Festival, Jihlava International Film Festival, European Media Arts Festival, DOXA, Melbourne International Animation Festival … Rhayne is currently finishing her first narrative feature, Ste. Anne.

Bret Parenteau is a sound artist from Winnipeg, MB, Treaty 1 Territory and Historic Métis Nation Homeland. Under the initials B.P., Parenteau has been crafting his formula of noise, field recording, sound collage & tape manipulation for the past few years. Parenteau has released a steady amount of work across Canada, US & internationally. He runs a cassette label Makade (Black) Star (formerly Male Activity from 2013-2019). Parenteau's artwork / audio work has recently been a part of local galleries Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art Gallery & Platform Centre. Bret is currently the Marketing Coordinator at ARP Books.

Irene Bindi is a visual artist who works in variations of collage and sound applying structural elements of experimental cinema. She alters and physically reconstructs moving and photographic images into paper. In parallel practice she has performed a number of noise projects under her name and in collaborations including Double Hook and Blind Squab. She has an MA in film studies from York University and is Production Editor at ARP Books. She lives in Winnipeg, Treaty 1 territory.

COVID-19 Protocols

During the opening reception we will be allowing a limited number of guests into the gallery at a time. Please bring a mask for when you enter the gallery.

After visiting the exhibition everyone is welcome to hangout behind Blinkers where we will be a hosting a socially distanced opening reception.

Accessibility

The main floor of Blinkers can be accessed using a temporary ramp, which goes up two steps at the front door, on Hargrave. The parking lot behind the building is fully wheelchair accessible (entrance to the parking lot is by sidewalk, approx. 90 ft north east of the front door). The basement is not accessible, including the only washroom in the building.

The nearest bus stop is #10723 Eastbound William @ Dagmar

Sponsors

Special thanks to our community sponsor, Video Pool Media Arts Centre

More Info

Link to the opening event on facebook.