C.V.
EDUCATION
Concordia University,
M.A. in Art Education, Montreal, CA 1985-91
Bachelor of Fine Arts, Art Education, 1979-84
Old-Montreal College,
Diploma in Visual Arts, 1977-79
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Sylvain Garneau Library, Laval, September 2020
Marius-Barbeau Library, Laval, February-March 2020
Title: The aesthetics of the mechanical object
Circa Gallery, Montreal, August 2019
Title: The scrapyard, from nature to identity
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Alpap Gallery, Laval, 2019
Title: Laval's Annual Art Show
Mercier House of Culture, Montreal, 2018
Title: The Cabinet of Curiosities, Quebec Association of Visual Arts Teachers
DISTINCTIONS
Special Mention from the jury, ALPAP, Laval, CA 2019
Mercier House of Culture, Montreal, 2018. One of my works was chosen by the members for the invitation card of the exhibition
ASSOCIATIONS
Montreal Visual Artists Group (RAAV)
Vertical, Artist Centre, Laval
Quebec Association of Visual Arts Teachers (AQESAP)
Laval Association for Multidisciplinary Arts (ALPAP)
TEACHING EXPERENCES
Visual Arts Teacher
Montreal School Board, Montreal, CA 1991-2021
Lecturer
Concordia University, Montreal, CA 1991-92
Short Biography
Not that Late career
Christiane Arbour was born in Montreal, Canada, and lives in Laval. She holds a master's degree in arts from Concordia University. She was a lecturer and then a school art teacher for several years. Despite her work and two childrens, she never stopped her creative work. However, she considers that it is only recently that she began a professionnal artistic career.
She first participated in a group exhibition in 2018 at the Maison de la Culture Mercier and was chosen to illustrate the invitation card. This kicked off several solo and group exhibitions in Laval and Montreal.
In her artistic practice, she considers drawing to be the basis of art in general. Therefore, her oil work and drawings are borderline to realism and abstract.
Artistic process
Motors, heaters and carcasses,
the appearance of a mechanical identity
In my works, an experienced mechanic can recognize with precision auto parts from a scrap yard.
My artistic reseach highlights the damages caused by time on carcasses of cars, ripped motors, conductive pipes or off tension wiring, for example.
Looking for a topic to be investigated, I started to draw the objects around me. Kettles, toasters, electric tools, shiny cameras: those were the first pastel drawings of large formats composing my academic production.
Then the observation of carcasses of cars gutted in fields or on the road made me observe the possible processing of different materials. The torn and twisted leather was unveiled as a metaphor of human skin, the fragment of rusty pipes that form a cross-line representing the ducts carrying life, fluffy foam smashed seats revealing a metal fence representing the human skeleton, of the random position of fabrics creating curves, the devastation caused by the fire creating black iridescent, among other things, all this revealed to me a world to discover, a nourishing universe of textures and shapes I take pleasure to reinvent and deconstruct.
Looking for a more personal artistic approach, my theme, the scrapyard, became a place of resurrection, of calm, a new world that united the human and the mechanical.
Sometimes my challenge is to create a harmonious ensemble of forms. Some other times my subject imposes me a restraint in the use of colors. The work results in a set of denatured objects issued from a particular mechanical world.
