Curator Martin discovers ‘Mentations’ during curation proces

Michael Oleksyn/Daily Herald Monique Martin points at the piece that got her creating her curating process for the 49th Annual Winter Festival Art Show and Sale on Monday at the Mann Art Gallery.

Following her Artist Talk at the Mann Art Gallery on Saturday night the curator of the 49th Annual Prince Albert Winter Festival Art Show began the process of curating the 120 pieces submitted by local artists.

Monique Martin worked diligently with the staff of the Mann Art Gallery and created the installation which she will call ‘Mentation’. She made the decision after walking into the gallery, which was filled with art.

“It was a lot to see,” she said. “(I thought) how can I organize all of this into something cohesive because there are so many different styles, so many different uses of color, scale, sculpture, everything. There’s so much human intention in this room. How can I put this together?”

The key was finding the first piece, which ended up being a painting of rear view mirror.

“I was thinking there’s so much going on politically in our world right now where we look backwards and go, ‘well what if?’ We have that rear view mirror that we judge ourselves, (and) we judge others. We judge all the time.”

The next few pieces flowed naturally. She found images of Tommy Douglas, Aboriginal cultural pieces, and a piece with a Ukrainian motif.

The exhibit begins with the rear view mirror piece as you enter the gallery and then the work begins to flow from the political as she perceives it to the natural.

There are several pieces on plinths (the lowest part of the base of an architectural column) around the middle of the room. She also placed tapestries low in order to be more interactive for children.

“I also chose to put a tapestry low to the ground because little people come to exhibitions and don’t always get to see the work,” she explained. “Everything they see is a trapezoid. When you’re tiny, you have to look up and see everything, so I wanted them to be able to see the detail in something like this and really experience it.

“I want to think about how people will come in and actually interact with the pieces, right? I’ve tried to create a bit of a flow, and so that’s going to be echoed a little bit.”

Martin has several ongoing projects and can bring that experience to the space at the Mann.

Michael Oleksyn/Daily Herald Monique Martin is the Curator for the 49th Annual Winter Festival Art Show and Sale, she curated the show on Jan. 26 and 27 at the Mann Art Gallery.

She placed plinths in such a way as they do not stand alone. She placed pieces relating to guitars on the ground. For a large spider, she has created an alcove to display it. Rather than hanging it from the ceiling it will instead float over the alcove.

“Instead of hanging kind of suspended in the middle, I wanted it to feel like it has its space and it’s building its web in this corner.” she explained.

She is also placing pieces with a sky theme so it feels as though the spider is in the sky.

“It was just a way to accentuate this great piece without putting it kind of alone. I didn’t want it to be alone,” she explained.

Another anchor piece was the Funnel of Memory, which then flows into pieces that are also related to memory.

“There’s a lot of detail that takes a bit of processing, and so I’ll do that a couple times,” she said. “I did some yesterday, and I’m doing it again today, revisiting my thoughts on pieces…. I tried to create the cycle of memories in this corner as an anchor.”

One important part of her curation is placing pieces at a lower level including a knitted sculpture piece on the floor.

“I think viewing art from a different angle is partly why I make things for on the floor,” she explained. “Viewing art from a different angle makes it very interesting and memorable.”

There will be pieces hanging from the ceiling in the hallway in front of the main gallery as well.

Another part of the hallway in front of the main gallery shows a deer sculpture. There is also environmental echoing in the main gallery with a glacier piece with a Polar Bear painting behind it.

Martin said another important aspect of curating is curating sightlines for people.

“I like to create a visual so that you feel welcome,” she explained. “I don’t want somebody to come to this door and feel like they have to get around a plinth to get into it. I stagger them and move them so that there’s a comfortable line.”

On the walkthrough on Monday afternoon, Martin said that she was probably not halfway through the project.

“Some of the pieces are extremely complex, so I’ve taken a chair and kind of sat in front of them for a significant amount of time to try to see all the detail,” she explained.

Martin said she enjoyed curating the works because it is how people interpret the world.

Before finding the definition of Mentations she went through her sketch book. Her sketch book acts more like a repository for concepts and pages are filled with writing of ideas

“It’s definitely my concepts book, so you get a full look at my craziness,” she explained. “There’s everything in here, and little bits of my planning exhibitions and whatnot.”

She brought three or four sketchbooks with her to assist the process.

Mentation is the process of using your mind to consider something carefully.

“Everyone in this room considered something carefully based on who they are, how they see colour in the world, how they want to interpret what they see, what they feel strongly about, and that for me was huge,” she said.

Each mentation for the artist also has a stopping point.

“They momentarily stop at that point and record that point in their world. They have to (say) ‘I’ve been thinking about this. This is where I’m stopping and I’m interpreting this in my way. I think that’s powerful,” Martin said.

She said the curating process as also a form of mentation.

“It was hard. It was a lot of work. I thought about it a lot last night. Like going to sleep after doing something like this is very difficult,” she said.

There are also inflection points, such as when she found the piece with the rear view mirror and the funnel of memory and being able to connect pieces.

She explained that she was surprised by how little watercolour was used as the chosen medium and not much printmaking.

“There are fewer watercolours than I expected and there’s absolutely no printmaking. Watercolors are almost not here and printmaking is not here and I think that’s interesting,” she said.

The paintings she found were mostly acylic and oil and another popular format was mixed media.

Martin will return for the Opening Gala on Feb. 7 but in between she is installing an exhibition in Kelowna. That exhibition also opens on Feb. 7 but she will be in Prince Albert.

“They asked me first so I didn’t ask them to change their date,” she said.

The Art Show and Sale runs from Feb. 7 to March 25 with the Opening Gala on Feb. 7 at 7 p.m. and the Curator Walk Through on Feb. 8 at 10 a.m.

michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca

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