RENÉE BÉLAND | A COLLECTION DOG
November 9 – December 8, 2006
My recent artwork consists of demonstrating dependency and fanaticism – affective and identity – some humans develop when living with a domestic animal. Each portrait intends to demonstrate a paradoxical society where, in an extreme way, animals can sometimes replace someone’s personality, with all the contradictions that implies.
Daily existence between a person – or acquaintance – and a dog, media images and photographs of current events (fashion, seasonal colours, personalities) are references nourishing my creative process. My work intends to highlight a person’s uniqueness within his everyday fanatic and unusual dog/owner relationship. In my work, there are two levels of reading : first, humour, and second, social awareness. I consider Post-kitsch neo-naif new-realism renaissance-actual to be the proper label for my artistic style.
A collection dog suggests a series of colourful paintings and photographs (10, approx. 72 x 72 inches) presenting humorous situations under the theme of fanaticism, of collecting and over consuming dog products. This actual research presents an accumulation of artistic, intellectual and emotional objects, carefully gathered and presented by a dog lover as his personal collection ( T-shirt, picture, curio). My artwork presents an individual’s behaviour by identifying the emotional humanization and public worship towards his dogs.
These paintings of dressed animals ( kid’s clothes or fashion ), multiple framed pictures or dog shaped objects, are aspects demonstrating a therapy ( zootherapy ) used by a large part of our society in a quest for identity and social belonging.
These portraits are installed in a colourful and seductive space, creating an intimate and appropriate atmosphere to perceive and view the dogs. My artistic research is meant to focus the viewer’s awareness by questioning the reasons and devices used by an individual to gradually denature a domestic animal into his image. This research is in fact my personal laboratory where I notice, transforms and bring together human and animal in an intersecting composition between fanaticism, derision and social interrogation.
Please forgive my English