Jillian French – News Editor

Photo courtesy of Jillian French

This past Friday, the Foreman Art Gallery opened its doors to the Bishop’s and Eastern Townships community for an evening of art, conversation and refreshments. The reception marked the opening of Small Things, a collection of work by resident artists Maude Arès and Douglas Scholes, curated by Noemie Fortin. Fortin created the theme Small Things as a tribute to the artists’ common appreciation of the minute, often unnoticed elements of everyday life. 

The exhibit results from a year-long residency with the Bishop’s ArtLab. During this time, the artists frequent La Généreuse, a farm in the heart of the Eastern Townships. Maude Arès felt inspired simply by “being in a relationship with people” at the farm, adding that “the farm was already in [the art]”. Through her art, Arès challenges us to observe our relationship to matter, encouraging visitors to appreciate the “vitality of material”. Scholes, for his part, focuses on the scraps of trivial life, creating art out of ordinary objects and actions observed in day-to-day life. In the exhibit, memories and meaning emerged from traces of the unexceptional.

Additionally, the gallery screened the film Subsistances by artist Raphaëlle de Groot. This documentary-style film highlights the region of Minganie, Quebec, exploring a series of small towns and their communities. The film tackles the complex relationships between the land and its people, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. During the reception, de Groot described the piece as “at once a documentary and poetry” and said that living in the region “changed [her] life”. 

The exterior of the gallery also featured the ArtLab’s Connections series, which invites Bishop’s students and faculty to bring new perspectives to existing art through written testimony describing their experience with the art. In the exhibit, student Anna Izmaylova reflects on her relationship to the sculptures, photography and prints of Canadian artist Stanley Lewis. Through three highlighted pieces, she contemplates her family’s move to Canada, the philosophy of needs and human infinitude.

Small Things is an ode to the beauty of environmental mundanity and is well worth visiting. The exhibit runs until Oct. 5 and is, as always, free to the public.

Photo courtesy of Jillian French