Luanne Martineau:Bed-sitter
January 15 to February 29, 2004
Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, BC

Luanne Martineau
Bed-sitter
January 15 to February 29, 2004
Opening January 15, 2004 6-9pm

Luanne Martineau joins interests in early twentieth century social realism with mid century modernism to produce works that speak to ongoing biases and entrenched exclusions. She utilizes numerous sources, from turn of the century comic books (for their racist depictions of a North American immigrant polyglot), to more contemporary sources such as Mad Magazine, as sources for elaborate drawings. Martineau copies select bits from these comic books on tracing paper, building up large palimpsests of marks whose aggregate quality is abstract, but which on close inspection reveals traces of illustrative realism, exaggerated stereotypes and received prejudices. Bed-sitter will showcase a suite of drawings accompanied by a large sculpture. Developed with outdated manufacturing technologies for fabricating textiles, in this case felting, Lubber (2003) is a soft sculpture that plays base, comic referents off of high modernist ideals.

Publication: Pamphlet with text by Reid Shier