Taking shape across a broad range of techniques and mediums – from moulding and casting to assemblage and bricolage – Blass’ practice is rooted in a commitment to the unexpected, bridging the figurative and the abstract to reconfigure our understanding of how a given object, image or material can or should perform.

In this exhibition, the Montreal based artist brings together a selection of works which engage with images, gestures and forms related to the body. Drawing on touchstones that extend from art history to the Internet, the works highlight the generative, often multiplicitous nature of Blass’ sculptural vernacular, grounded as readily in the idiosyncratic and illusory as the traditional and representational. Whether building forms that toy with the uncanny or staging scenes that pull our attention in multiple directions, Blass draws liberally on the tradition of sculpture to consider anew both the medium and the world around her.

Valerie Blass (b. 1967, Montreal) lives and works in Montreal. Recent exhibitions include Oakville Galleries, Oakville, ON.; Artspeak, Vancouver; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal; and MOCA Toronto. Her work has also been included in recent group exhibitions at La Biennale de Montréal; MASS MoCA, Massachusetts; The Power Plant, Toronto; MOCA Cleveland; and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. In 2013, she presented a new commission for The Public Art Fund in New York. She was the 2017 recipient of the Gershon Iskowitz prize, presented with the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Review | ‘Valérie Blass: Figurative fragments of a double-life world‘ by Aidan Dunne, Irish Times, 9 July 2019.

Artists in Conversation | Valérie Blass & Cynthia Girard-Renard, 20 June 2019, 5.30pm.

Panel Discussion | In Pursuit of the Perfect Form, in collaboration with Science Gallery Dublin, 27 June 2019, 6pm.

Film Screening | Love and Anarchy (1973, d. Lina Wertmüller) in collaboration with Science Gallery Dublin, 10 July 2019, 6pm.

Student Forum Tour | Aisling Ní Aodha, 17 July 2019, 1.15pm.

Audio-described tour of Valérie Blass exhibition | Led by Aideen Quirke, 31 July 2019, 1.15pm.

Curator’s Tour | Led by Dr Georgina Jackson, 14 August 2019, 1.15pm.

The Mime, the Model and the Dupe by Valérie Blass is presented in partnership with Oakville Galleries, ON, Canada, and is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

To read the exhibition handout and for full image credits please click here.

Images: (left) Valérie Blass, The Mime, the Model and the Dupe, 2019. Photograph by Louis Haugh. (right) Valérie Blass, (from left to right) Terminons en beauté (cruche phalllique), J’ai percé un trou (cruche standard), Précieuse ma précieuse (cruche bauhaus), Bruit encirclé (cruche nouvelle), 2016, steel rod, embroidery fabric, PVC, glue. Photograph by Louis Haugh.