Reverie

Artists: Michelle Bui (Montreal), Laura Findlay (Toronto) and Xan Shian (Montreal)
Exhibition: From November 16 to December 22, 2017
Exhibition poem: Xan Shian
Installation views: Jean-Michael Seminaro

Projet Pangée is pleased to present Reverie, an exhibition which brings together the work of Michelle Bui, Laura Findlay and Xan Shian. The following poem, written by Xan Shian, serves as the exhibition text.

on dreaming

you slip the ties of light
reach the soft lit contour of your hand
palm to stars
to catch the bell of time, which rings between your fingers

               i search for orion as i walk down manzer road
               my grandfather's compass in the cockpit of his bomber
               a question in a bottle of stars
               which i write as he breaks the longitudes of life

the sands of sleep keep watch
you carve breath
from the departed
write the rhythm of their leaving into the skin of your arm
your hands a lever for time

find the pause button and push

               mrs. neil kneels on the floor, her legs apart, the red carpet a synonym for touch
               in cramond, the swans with their mouths
               wide open to the firth of forth

               we slip the tide
               ophidians stranded
               the wilding earth               the sea at large
               a tide which strides great paces with the wind

remember how
a wave folds itself onto the shore

               at zahara we find a small shack on the dunes
               where the mediterranean meets the atlantic
               while others rest, i am pulled by the unshakeable call
               of oceans colliding
               i shrug the robes of sleep and enter
               the sounds scouring dark
               tides like impenetrable topographies of stone

your eyelids, a veil
relinquish the spill of gravity
like a moment cupped
around

               the fraying light

Biographies
Michelle Bui impulsively accumulates objects, materials, colours, textiles, photographs and plants. Selected for their availability and tactile qualities, her collections are impeccably arranged and constantly retrieved and reorganized in her studio. They act as fragments, waiting to become the subjects of a promising assemblage. A native of Montreal, Michelle Bui received a BFA in Painting and Drawing from Concordia University and is currently a Master's candidate in Visual and Media Arts at the Université du Québec à Montréal. In 2017, pursuing her research on the materiality of photography at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris, she represented the emerging talents of photography at the Jeux de la Francophonie in Abidjan. Recipient of the François-Xavier Marange scholarship, Michelle Bui is the artist in residence of the Atelier Circulaire for the next year. She is creating a new body of work called Pool of Plenty, which will be presented at UQAM Gallery (January 2018) and at the VU PHOTO Centre in Quebec City (February 2018).

Laura Findlay is born in Montreal and is currently a Toronto-based artist who makes paintings and installations that examine understanding events through fragmentary information. Recent exhibitions include Grounds at Brucebo Konstnärshemmet, Sweden (2017), Moving While Looking at Things That Do Not Move at The Kamloops Art Gallery, British-Colombia (2017), Messengers at Zalucky Contemporary, Toronto (2017), Ghost Story at Xspace Cultural Centre, Toronto (2016), @--}--- at Lord Ludd, Philadelphia (2016) and Night Birds at Seafoam, Toronto (2016). She completed her MFA at the University of Guelph in 2014.

Xan Shian is a multidisciplinary artist, photographer, and writer living in Montreal. Her work seeks to bridge the chasm between photography and poetry, while navigating tropic tensions through material, personal and interpersonal relationships. Drawing on rhetorical theory, philosophy, and literature she filters her work through the lens of lived experience, both that of her own and of others. She has published two books, Ontology (Folca Press, 2017) and Threshold (Leaf Press, 2015), in collaboration with poet, Marilyn Bowering. She has exhibited her work in Scotland and Victoria, BC. In 2017 she curated the multidisciplinary exhibit, Ontology, at Espace Projet in Montreal as part of the Art Matters Festival. She has a BA in Communication Studies from Concordia University (2012), and is currently finishing a BFA in Studio Arts, Photography, also at Concordia University.

Press (exhibition)
Canadian Art Must-Sees: https://canadianart.ca/must-sees/must-sees-this-week-november-16-to-22-2017/
Ton Barbier: http://www.tonbarbier.com/2017/11/20/vernissage-minimaliste-de-lexposition-reverie-au-projet-pangee