Arteles Catalogue 2023-2020

Back to Basics program / JULY 2023
Evelyne Leblanc-Roberge
Canada / USA
www.evelynelr.space
About
At the center of my art practice are images, usually taken
with a camera, printed, projected, on screens, bounded in
a book, sent by mail, wrapped around objects, or carefully
placed in a room. My projects generally involve acts of close
observation of the physical spaces I (and/or collaborators)
inhabit, whether it’s the details of a dusty waiting room green
plant, the texture and wood grain of my desktop, the corner
of sky to be seen from a small window, or the dance of paper
and wind.
Finding ant nests
When I explored Arteles’ location via google street views
before the residency, I strangely recognized the landscape, its
plants and trees and gravel roads. The forest looked familiar,
even through the google-mediated format. I grew up in a
similar remote rural setting in Northeast Quebec. Flashbacks
from my childhood resurfaced during my month at Arteles
and helped me outline a project I have had in mind for a few
years but never knew how it would take shape. It is slowly
becoming a book and a short film about the reconnection
with and then loss of a childhood friend, the act of writing,
sending and receiving letters, the roles and stories of trees
in both rural and urban settings, and, the familiarities and
estrangements to a landscape, a place.