Jessica Auer
in Chandler
PHOTOGRAPHY
C’est l’arbre qui cache la forêt
(It’s the Tree That Hides the Forest)
Across from Cantine du Chenail | 1 Rue de la Plage | Chandler
Jessica Auer, Montreal, Québec, and Seydisfjördur, Island | jessicaauer.com
Canadian photographer and visual artist Jessica Auer divides her time between Montreal, Québec, and Seydisfjördur, Iceland.
Her work is broadly concerned with the study of landscapes as cultural sites, focusing on themes that connect history, place, journey and cultural experience. Jessica received her MFA in Studio Arts from Concordia University in Montreal in 2007 and has since participated in numerous international artist residency programs, including the Chilkoot Trail AIR in Alaska and the Yukon Territory, Centre Diaphane in Picardy, France, and at the Baer Art Centre in Iceland. Recent exhibitions include Yukon Arts Centre, Whitehorse, Yukon, 2016; La Quadrilatère, Beauvais, France, 2016; Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Montreal, 2016; Oslo8, Basel, Switzerland, 2015; and The Gotland Museum of Art, Visby, Sweden, 2015. Jessica currently teaches photography at Concordia University.
EXHIBITION AT RENCONTRES
C’est l’arbre qui cache la forêt
(It’s the Tree That Hides the Forest)
During a residency in Picardy, France, Jessica Auer was moved by the collection of historical artworks at MUDO – the Musée départemental de l’Oise (most of whose paintings were created by artists from the region, and which comprise a gateway to the landscapes of Picardy) and, in particular, a work by Paul Huet (La Forêt de Compiègne / The Forest of Compiègne) to undertake a photo exploration of that very forest. Jessica Auer sought to grasp its mythological character along with its contemporary identity. Walking along trails and across some wilder terrain, she studied the variety of the trees, the effects of the light on the landscape, and looked for traces of the past left by environmental cycles as much as by human intervention. Her images, picking up the artists’ torch, succeed in conveying the romantic qualities of the forest that captivated the landscape painter of the nineteenth century, while at the same time creating a series that presents a realistic view of the forest today.