anne-marie giroux

Anne-Marie Giroux by Robert Bernier

And what if…?

Anne-Marie Giroux came to the visual arts through choreography. Which brings up a seemingly simple question: Why does a creator who expresses herself through movement choose a practice defined by inertia? There is no simple answer to this... First, because there are many; second because all are intertwined.

To be metal, stone, wood ... a woman and a mortal

Anne-Marie Giroux’s choreographic universe combines several disciplines, and while movement is a natural and fundamental element, it also shares the stage with image, sound and sculpture — among others. Perhaps what explains her choice to pursue her artistic exploration through visual arts is that inertia has been present in her choreographic practice from the very outset. Her movements are interrogative, punctuated by pauses that are like the silences which give body to the music. Her last choreographic work to date, Aube et Crépuscule (2001), is an eloquent testimony to her solemn and sober approach to dance, in which she uses slowness as a poetic vector. Through the jerky yet graceful movements, lighting, sounds and sculptural elements linking the bodies of the dancers personifying “being metal”, “being stone” and “being wood”, Aube et Crépuscule evokes the unfolding of life, its many challenges and, above all, its finality.

Aube et Crépuscule, 2001. Photo credit Anne-Marie Giroux

This approach remains the same in her visual arts creations, which began to take shape professionally in 2008. Throughout her art practice, Anne-Marie Giroux always expresses herself with a subtle élan. Her interrogations remain the same: why feel, react, love and cry if it is all ultimately for nought? An art of apprehension? Of resignation? And what if...

I, you, she...

A questioning of the inevitable. But underneath, something even more fundamental: the very nature of time. It is a mystery that science has yet to unravel. Anne-Marie Giroux’s work is a poetic observation of time and its eroding effect; she experiments it through slowness, in which she weighs each step, each gesture, before gathering momentum and finding her time until losing it again... This conceals a reflection on the notion of consciousness of the body—her own, and ours. Myriads of lives and species, spaces within space. Until one day...

After Aube et Crépuscule, in 2002, Anne-Marie Giroux began a lengthy process of reflection. She wrote, painted, researched. This was not her first foray into the world of visual arts, as she previously had incorporated sculpture into her choreographies, notably through collaborations with painter and sculptor Jérôme Poirier with whom she also shared her life until 2003. In the mid-2000s, a major change occurred when she completed her first fully fledged series of paintings. She called it Rouge. The year was 2008, seven years after she had first started thinking about it. This series remains unique in her body of work. It stands out for its use of pure colours and particularly expressive brushstrokes. This is something that would never be seen again, or only rarely, in her later works. Of course, pure colour sometimes returns, but always in a well delineated way.

In 2010, Anne-Marie painted Kaifeng, China, a series of paintings inspired by the ancient Chinese capital, which she discovered on a trip in 2008, when her new partner accepted a teaching position at a Chinese university. A total shock. Anne-Marie Giroux reaffirmed her ease with the medium, rendering commanding impastos through a surprising economy of details. Her gesture is precise and without embellishment. Of particular note in this series are the remarkable portraits of an old man she met at Kaifeng station, entitled Six portraits de Monsieur K in China. She presented both series in 2010 as part of her first solo exhibition, a more or less closed-circuit event in an artist’s studio. Nonetheless, this was to kick-start a different kind of multidisciplinary exploration and assiduous research in visual arts.

The chirping of crickets

Near a lake, at night, in a dark forest, you are treated to a concert as grandiose as it is overwhelming: the chanting of thousands of crickets. This love song is created by male crickets rubbing their hind legs and wings. In the Abitibi forest, of which Anne-Marie Giroux is a frequent visitor, this song has become one of desolation. Man's impact on the forest is devastating. Clear- cutting, pollution and wildfires are wreaking unsuspected havoc. Deeply moved by this phenomenon, Anne-Marie Giroux set out to produce two series of works on the precariousness of nature entitled Si un arbre j'étais (2011-2016) and Forêt Morte (2012- 2015).

The angular shapes on canvas evoke an anthropomorphic tree. The approach is solemn, uncluttered, without artifice, and undoubtedly her.

The tree, solid, slow, rooted in its nurturing environment, is placed face to face with itself. Whatever it does, it cannot escape its fate. With this series, Anne-Marie Giroux introduces the notion of form-as-object, a prelude to the three-dimensional creations that would soon follow. From 2011 to 2016 the artist explored this metaphor of everything being present in some way everything else. In 2013, she presented both series in an exhibition under the evocative title: Quand la matière prend corps. One day crickets will fall silent...

Sequences of drifting...

Starting in 2014, she also began several series around the theme of drifting, expressed in several sequences: Dérive, À la dérive, Dérive à la dérive, Dérives Phase I, Fragments and Dérives à la dérive Phase II. More than just a series, this is a cycle that seemed to be quietly leading her to the reintegration of movement. To be continued... In the meantime, it is worth noting that these various “adrift” sequences could be seen as parts of a single evolving work, itself a metaphor for time. A subtle way of introducing movement, to gain momentum, because the drift is not yet complete.

A first version was created in 2014, then a second in 2017. At the time, Anne-Marie Giroux was devoting most of her time to painting — with Dérive (2014–2018) and À la dérive (2017–2018) - before later introducing a third dimension back into her work. The result is a work-assessment. The observation of a quest for space that is transformed into a poetic and assertive creative tool. Her goal is to find and express her place as a woman artist, using time as her canvas. For her, work is above all a questioning of the meaning of duration. Initially a contemporary choreographer, her artistic research had now been enriched by visual arts, so that movement and inertia may come together.

In 2019, she developed the first phase of an installation composed of three-dimensional works that she entitled Dérives Phase I. The work gained such scope that she was invited to showcase it at the Artist Project Contemporary Art Fair in Toronto. The same year, she was one of 52 finalists in the biennial Salt Spring National Art Prize competition in British Columbia.

And yet Anne-Marie Giroux was not done with this theme. In 2020, she began a new project that would continue well into 2023. A new creative stage around drifting emerged in the installation project she entitled, Dérives à la dérive Phase II. A body of work that retained the fundamental elements of previous versions, but which took her desire to extract meaning from the material through her research as a painter and sculptor even further. In this large-scale assemblage, tradition opens up to exploration, as the acquired meets the accidental. Taking advantage of an artist residency completed during the pandemic to push back her own limits, she coasted on this creative momentum until April 2023, when she first presented this second phase at Produit Rien gallery in Montreal.

Dérives à la dérive Phase II at Produit Rien, Montreal 2023. Photo credit Paul Litherland and Anne-Marie Giroux

This is without a doubt the most accomplished version of the piece, with each of its elements dramatizing the surface as a whole. The installation traces a tenuous and solemn poetic thread through its scenographic interactions. While the core of her thinking is undeniably biographical, the artist also goes far beyond its boundaries. She looks at the inescapable, at the finality of everything, and its antithetical nature to the human pretension to control the environment in all its forms. Can utter abandon also be an act of trust? A key to transcendence? Do we even have a choice? In our world, where illusions shine like Icarus in the firmament of human hubris, the artist challenges the viewer with a simple question: does life have any meaning other than in the moment? The exhibition also reintroduces a plaster cast of the artist made thirty years ago by Jérôme Poirier. Like a recumbent figure, it bears witness to the fact that time will take her away.

And what if...?

Robert Bernier, June 2024

Robert Bernier has been teaching adults to better understand painting for many years. He has also written numerous books on painting, including Jean Paul Riopelle, Visions d’Amérique, Un siècle de peinture au Québec (1999), La peinture au Québec depuis les années 60 (2002), Miyuki Tanobe (2004), Claude Le Sauteur (2005), Tex Lecor, Ombre et lumière (Québec-Amérique, 2022), Louis-Paul Allard, Un homme d’exception (Éditions Un monde différent, 2023) and Raconte-moi Jean Paul Riopelle published (Boomerang Éditeur, 2023). Founder and director of Parcours magazine from 1989 to 2017, he also collaborates as a writer and curator on several publications, catalogues and exhibitions. In 2025, he will publish his first children’s novel with Hugo Publishing.

A video made by Anne-Marie Giroux about the installation Dérives à la dérive Phase II is available on Vimeo:

Link: https://vimeo.com/897606448