TRACES
As part of its 2025-2026 exhibition programming titled Élan, the Artothèque is pleased to present the TRACES exhibition by artists Shelley Freeman and Wendy A. Thomas, two Montreal-based artists whose painting practices focus on the exploration of urban structures and natural formations at the border of the visible and the imperceptible.
Wendy A. Thomas explores scale and perception, inspired by years of photographing her urban environment. She is intrigued by the long shadows cast by gravel on sidewalks, which create worlds open to multiple interpretations, and by the scratches and bumps on the concrete retaining walls of overpasses. This raises the question of where these interventions come from and how they reflect the trajectories of unknown people.
Thomas creates new ways of presenting compositions, honoring the recent history of her neighborhood. Her semi-abstract paintings raise questions about how our first impressions can differ from more complex realities. The potential beauty of neglected elements in our environment serves as a metaphor for our understanding of the world.
The form and compositions of Thomas work together: the original image is modified in the same way as stains, gravel, amber, and bumps regularly change. The paintings are built with much texture and layers of paint to reflect the diversity of types of intervention.
Holding a B.A. in Fine Arts (specializing in visual arts) and a Master’s in interdisciplinary studies from York University in Toronto, Wendy A. Thomas has also studied for several years at the Centre des arts visuels de Westmount, Quebec. Her works have been part of many group, duo, and solo exhibitions, and are in private collections in Canada and the United States. She is a professional member of the Regroupement des artistes en arts visuels du Québec, ELAN, Artistes à Montréal, Galerie Arbon, and the Canadian Museums Association.
Eclectic in her interests, Shelley Freeman’s work primarily focuses on nature: the darkness and empty spaces found in natural phenomena such as caves, rocks, water and ice formations, and in artificial structures like tunnels and abandoned mines. Her paintings suggest slow natural changes over eons and metaphorically exchange the forbidden world, separations, fusions, and self-exploration.
Freeman is intrigued by the link between the concept of illusion and the dimension of depth. This has recently led her to create a scene depicting the roots of aquatic plants seen from the bottom of a lake. Her research extends to other aesthetic concerns such as scale ambiguity, the juxtaposition of light and dark masses, and the play between 2D and 3D forms on a flat surface.
Freeman’s source material for her semi-abstract paintings comes from photos taken during travels, hiking, and caving as a member of Spéléo Québec. She slowly builds multi-layered textured surfaces using resins, plaster, and wax, digging, sanding, and polishing them to create smooth surfaces or empty spaces. Her paintings, prints, and photographs have been exhibited in many shows and are part of public and private collections in Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, the United States, and Wales.
A dedicated volunteer in the Quebec arts community since 1999, Freeman is a board member of the Regroupement des artistes en arts visuels of CARFAC National, and is a member of ELAN, the Artists of St-Henri, and the Galerie Arbor.