I am here. Irene F. Whittome

The title of this exhibition, like a performative statement, asserts itself as an authoritative proclamation. It simultaneously designates a presence, a place, and a moment: the here-and-now where Irene F. Whittome finds herself. But the series of images that also bears this title, showing the artist’s diminutive silhouette in the center of a former quarry now overgrown in lush vegetation, complicates this assertion. “I am here” thus becomes a paradoxical declaration, in which the artist is both anchored and almost erased in the immensity of the landscape. Since 2014, Whittome has permanently settled in this abandoned quarry in Ogden, leaving Montreal, its bustling atmosphere, and its cultural milieu. She retreated into this underworld to live closer to nature and in solitude, essential conditions for her freedom and the renewal of her artistic practice. This aspiration drives Whittome’s exhibition: to be here, in nature, fully occupying the present moment. It is both poetic stance and radical gesture — a way of inhabiting the world by observing it, translating it, sculpting it, gently, consistently.

Irene F. Whittome‘s artistic career spans more than sixty years. Born in Vancouver in 1942, the artist moved to Montreal in 1968, where she pursued a career as a professor of visual arts at Concordia University until 2007, alongside her creative activities. Recurring themes in her work include collection, exhibition, museum, duration, time, and traces. Over the years, she has produced a significant body of work using techniques as varied as printmaking, photography, painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation. Her work has been widely exhibited in Canada and abroad, including solo exhibitions at the CIAC – Centre international d’art contemporain de Montréal (1995), the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (1997), the Canadian Centre for Architecture (1998), the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (2000), and the Bishop University Art Gallery (now the Foreman Art Gallery) (2004). Irene F. Whittome has won the Canada Council for the Arts’ Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award (1991), the Gershon Iskowitz Foundation Award, Toronto (1992), the Paul-Émile Borduas Award from the Government of Quebec (1997), and the Governor General’s Award in Media Arts (2002). In 2005, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada. Her works are included in the collections of major Canadian museums, and since 2005 she has been represented by Galerie Simon Blais in Montreal.