About —
“For as long as I can remember, observing nature and experimenting with matter have always been valuable tools of knowledge for me. Sometimes, I imagine that if I had not worked in the field of visual arts, I would have been active in the sciences, and that if I had been born in the Middle Ages, I like to think that I would have been an alchemist.”
Rosalie D. Gagné
Rosalie D. Gagné has made over the last twenty-five years a series of works that witness her ability to combine manual sculpting practices with new technologies. She has explored the traditional arts of glassblowing and clay, but also composes with artificial materials, including polyethylene, ventilators, movement detectors, LED light systems, and electronics. Since 2018, in collaboration with her colleague Sofian Audry, she has been working on an ambitious project called Morphosis involving robots and machine learning algorithms. With ventures into biology and meditation, Gagné’s work combines opposing worlds – organic and artificial, solid and ethereal, microcosm and macrocosm – and investigates the ensuing tensions. The artist also revealed an early fascination with alchemy, manifested through works featuring eccentric glass vases and liquids of all sorts-resembling at times those of a chemistry laboratory. Inspired by Foucault’s device, she made hanging sculptures such as Pendulum (2006), which expressed her interest in cosmology and the place of humankind and Earth in the universe.
Since 2009, she has created a number of installations generating sound, movement, and color, while exploring biomimicry through sculptures that replicate shapes and behaviors found in nature. Gagné’s latest works have become major installations, such as Artificial Kingdom IV: forty-five inflatable polyethylene cells hanging from a thirty-foot ceiling and reacting to the visitor’s presence. First installed in the Grand Theatre de Québec in 2020 and at the Neuberger Museum of Art in 2024, the installation has now been replicated and adapted for the hall of the Musée d’art de Joliette.
Born in Quebec City, Rosalie D. Gagné is a true Pan-American artist, whose artist career can be traced between Quebec, Mexico City, and Montreal, where she currently resides and practices. In addition to her career as a practicing artist, Gagne is a professor in the Department of Visual Art and Art History at Lanaudière College in Joliette (Québec), where she has taught since 2010.
Rosalie D. Gagné: A Contemporary Alchemist is her first retrospective exhibition and showcases her artistic production since 1997. The exhibition will also document the artist’s most important site-specific projects and feature a selection of freehand preparatory drawings on paper.
Booklet
Biographies —
Rosalie D. Gagné has been active in the visual arts since the early 2000s. She has progressively included digital media in her work since 2007, after having worked as a research assistant at the Hexagram Institute during her MFA studies at Concordia University in Montréal.
Her work is rooted in the phenomenology of matter and perception. Her interest in creating sensorial and perceptual experiences has led her to produce immersive sculptural installations and reactive environments. These reflect the relationships between macrocosms and microcosms, as well as the potential tension and merging between nature and technology.
Rosalie D. Gagné’s work has been presented in Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Europe. She lives in Tiohtiá:ke / Mooniyang / Montréal and shares her time between her art practice and teaching in the visual arts.
Patrice Giasson is the Alex Gordon Curator of Art of the Americas at the Neuberger Museum of Art. He has taught in the Department of Art History at SUNY Purchase College since 2009, and specializes in Modern and Contemporary Latin American art. He has curated several exhibitions and edited for the Neuberger Museum of Art (Purchase College, SUNY), the following titles: Rosalie D. Gagné: A Contemporary Alchemist (2024); A Matter of Discovery: The Art of Luis Perelman (2023); Nicolás De Jesús: A Mexican Artist for Global Justice (co published with Hirmer, 2022); “Art Got into Me” The Work of Engels the Artist (2020); Pier Paolo Pasolini: Subversive Prophet (2020); Destination Latin America. Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art from the Collection (2018); A Studio in the Museum: The Playful Universe of Ignacio Iturria (2017); Leandro Erlich: Port of Reflections (co-edited with Helaine Posner, 2017); Teresa Margolles: We Have a Common Thread (2015); Pre-Columbian Remix: The Art of Enrique Chagoya, Demián Flores, Rubén Ortiz-Torres, and Nadín Ospina (2013).
Presented in Joliette by the Jacques Martin family.
This exhibition is organized by the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, in collaboration with the Willowell Foundation. Funding was generously provided by the Alex Gordon Foundation, with the support of the Alex Gordon Estate. The artist would like to thank the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council for the Arts for their support.
Images in the banner:
Views from the exhibition Rosalie D. Gagné: A Contemporary Alchemist, 2024. Courtesy of the Neuberger Museum of Art. Photo: Lynda Shenkman.