To access Andrée Préfontaine's CV, please click here

« J’ai voulu revisiter le thème du champêtre à ma manière par le biais d'une installation audio-vidéographique interactive. La thématique du champêtre repose sur l’éloge de la beauté et du passage du temps.  Souvent coexistent des éléments visuels reliés à la musique et la représentation de la nature. Ces deux éléments nous informent du temps qui fuit, ce qui crée une tension quant au désir de rendre durable puisque les sensations agréables que l’on éprouve sont éphémères. Ainsi le visiteur est convié à une activité qui lui permet de construire esthétiquement des moments interactifs  palpables. Avec la manipulation/animation des végétaux, le participant subit lui-même une transformation de statut; il devient cuisinier, compositeur et l’artiste qui anime une nature morte qui reprend vie aux plans vidéographique et sonore».             

-Andrée Préfontaine

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tutti Frutti

Installation by visual artist Andrée Préfontaine

Glendon Gallery - November 7– December 15, 2006

Opening Reception: Tuesday November 7, 6 - 8 pm

Toronto, October 17, 2006 – Glendon Gallery has started its fall programming by exploring the classical art themes of landscape and still life with Eye Candy 3. We are pleased to follow the subject matter of food with an interactive installation called Tutti Frutti, by videaste-artist Andrée Préfontaine, from November 7 to December 15.

Tutti Frutti, invites viewers to compose their own still life through sound, using the instruments at their disposal. Préfontaine’s sound installation plays on the notions of reality and representation, but for the viewer-cum-participant, these notions of perception rapidly give way to the pleasure of discovering the gallery’s interactive elements. Playing with fruit in a white space enables the visitor to take on the role of still-life artist, conductor or cook.

Biographical Note

A cellist by training, Andrée Préfontaine pursued graduate studies at the Université du Québec in Montréal, specializing in media art. Her videographic works have been shown in festivals in Canada, France, the United States and Switzerland. Her work was chosen for the Vidéoformes art festival in Clermond Ferrand as well as the Traverses Vidéo event in Toulouse, France. In addition, her videos have represented Québec in museums in Mexico and Salzbourg, France. She was the recipient of the 2003 “New Technologies” award from the Fondation pour les arts, les lettres et la culture de l’Outaouais. Born in Laval, Québec, Andrée Préfontaine currently resides and works in Gatineau.

Acknowledgements

Andrée Préfontaine gratefully acknowledges the support of the Canada Council, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Ontario Arts Council, Daïmon média arts & photography, and the precious collaboration of programmer Mathieu Bouchard. The Glendon Gallery would like to thank the Ontario Arts Council, Québec’s Toronto office, and its media partners: L'Express newspaper, Radio-Canada TV and radio CJBC 860 AM, Première Chaîne.

Artist’s Talk: noon – 1 pm

Andrée Préfontaine: Wednesday, November 8

New: guided tours (free admission)

Each Tuesday from noon to 1:00 pm, you are invited to go on a guided tour of the exhibition with

Marc Audette, curator at the Glendon Gallery. Reservation: 416-487-6721.

Gallery hours: Tuesday to Friday: 12:00 to 3:00 pm / Saturday: 1:00 to 4:00 pm.

Information: Cristina Raimondo, Gallery Assistant: 416-487-6721.

 gallery@glendon.yorku.ca / www.glendon.yorku.ca/gallery

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Source: Martine Rheault, Artistic Coordinator, Glendon Gallery: 416-487-6859.

One can’t help but notice a decidedly nutritional theme at the Glendon Gallery these days. There was Eye Candy 3 last September, displaying photographs of Canadian landscapes modelled from processed foods. The current exhibition with the enticing title of Tutti Frutti (all fruits) focuses once again on edibles as a source of art. If you are like me, the word tutti-frutti evokes the pleasures of childhood indulgences in soft, chewy, sweet-and-sour candies in a variety of fruit flavours.

But that is decidedly not what Andrée Préfontaine’s exhibition is about. She has installed two images which combine a nature theme, through the use of fruits and vegetables, with high levels of technology. On entering the gallery, your attention is riveted by the projected image of an enormous, pulsating strawberry on one wall. It brings to mind a huge, beating heart; inevitably, it also evokes sexual associations in the viewer. The second interactive installation combines colour, sound and projection, with the aid of a computer and a camera. Visitors are invited to move pieces of peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes and green beans around on a glass surface which is lit from underneath and whose image is projected on an adjacent wall.

With Tutti Frutti, the artist re-visits ‘pastoral’ themes in a unique and personal way, through the use of interactive audio-videographic installations.  “Country themes aspire to praise beauty and the passage of time”, says Préfontaine. “Artists often combine representations of nature with visual and sound elements. These elements remind us that time is fleeting – inciting us to hold on to something lasting, since our feelings of pleasure are ephemeral.” Préfontaine thus invites the visitor to be part of the creative process in a variety of roles: those of cook, composer and artist, through the creation of a still-life image which comes to life through moving images and sounds.

Préfontaine is eager to explain the technology behind these installations, using timed photography, sound manipulation, computer recognition of specific sound and colour wave lengths, the creation of texture sounds, tracking, looping and other electronic means. She has honed these skills through her wide-ranging training in music, technology and the visual arts. The child of a family of musicians going back several generations, Préfontaine’s original training was as a cellist. But she wanted to break out of the family mould and was always fascinated by other art forms. Having earned a BA in cello interpretation at the Montreal Conservatory in 1977, she went on to complete her training in the visual arts with a BA at the Université du Québec à Hull in 1994, and an MA at the Université du Québec à Montréal in 1998.

Says Préfontaine about the image of the strawberry: “I wanted to represent the temporality of the image and of life.” And that is exactly what she achieved by videotaping the fruit across a continuum of time, until its desiccation and deterioration. She then speeded up the video and collated the images forwards and backwards, thereby achieving the pulsating action.

“This work allows me to enter contemporary art through its sophistication”, commented Glendon director of cultural and artistic affairs Martine Rheault. “It helps me to understand how many different ways one can conceive modern art.”

Tutti Frutti is at the Glendon Gallery from November 7 to December 15, Tuesday to Friday, 12:00 to 3:00; Saturday 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. The gallery’s website can provide further information at www.glendon.yorku.ca/gallery .