Open Spaces

Joani Tremblay is interested in the notion of open spaces within a Neo-Ornamentalist practice of drawing, print media and embroidery. Her research looks at the idea of psychogeography as defined by Guy Debord in 1955, which suggests that a geographical environment, like invisible or created spaces, acts on the emotions and behaviour of individuals. In continuation with this idea, her aim is to create spaces where one can lose oneself in an abstract place, a non-existing location, an empty scene that needs to be fulfilled with one’s states of mind. In trying to attain this, she creates abstract spaces on large format paper, where one feels submerged and can lose one’s self in the details, in the marks that create formations, masses, structures and movement. Tremblay looks closely into how Neo-Ornamentalism can aesthetically lead her research. Her drawings mimic the way organic systems are created and how they develop. In this way, the drawing evolves in part on its own, expanding similarly to that of cellular structures. The spaces are an accumulation of markings of repetitive actions where each mark is a response to the previous one.

Joani Tremblay is a Canadian artist living and working in Montreal. Tremblay creates abstract spaces on a large paper format where one can lose one’s self into details, into marks creating formations, masses, structures and movement. Tremblay’s work has been shown recently in Tokyo, New York City and throughout Canada in Toronto, Montreal, Rimouski and Calgary. Her work is part of the Loto-Québec Collection and numerous national and international private collections. She is the recipient of the Vladimir J. Elgart Graduate Scholarship and a prestigious research grant from The Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture.

Click below to download the accompanying brochure, with an essay by Toronto-based artist and writer, Rebecca Diederichs.

Supported by: Les Fonds de recherche du Québec