The Key to the Fields

Artist: Margot Klingender (Montreal)
Opening: Thursday September 5, 5:30 - 8:30pm
Exhibition: September 5 to October 19, 2019

For Margot Klingender, each work begins with a found image. Gathered over the course of several years, some images arrive by chance, while others are carefully sought after. Beneath the loving gaze and attentive observation of the artist, they are drawn over and over, slowly transforming themselves from images in flux to something in-between: becoming objects which hold their own autonomy. 

The Key to the Fields is a testimony to Klingender's deep affection for the vast indexical archive of images, symbols, and referents found around the garden and its potential for enchantment. This telescopes into an array of disseminated sculptures, which possess the aura and ingenuity of child-made toys. Tending towards the hieroglyphic, the objects she creates out of noble materials like bronze and leather, and in luxurious hues, contrast with the grittiness and wobbliness of her lines, giving them a naïveté that makes them at once both appealing and dangerous. For Klingender, they exist in a form of duality, open and closed, individual and collective. The objects become entry points to knowledge and imagining, creating an in-between space to slip in and out of, with the objects acting as a sort of portal. Structures and circuits begin to appear, surfacing a place for gathering and conjuring.

Biography

Margot Klingender (b. 1991, Edmonton, Canada) holds a BFA from Concordia University (2014). She has recently completed several residencies, including a partnership between the Slade Research Institute and the Camden Arts Centre in London, England, and the Banff Centre for the Arts in Banff, Alberta. Her work has been included in several group exhibitions including Maureen III at the Darling Foundry in Montreal, Quebec and the 22e RIMAV at Galerie UQO in Gatineau, Quebec. She is the recipient of the Dale and Nick Tedeschi Fellowship, and the Lillian Vineberg Graduate Student Award and  is currently completing her MFA in Painting and Drawing at Concordia University in Montreal.