Performance

Parts of Olivia Boudreau’s diverse practice are performance and video works capturing gradual movement in real time. For example, Box (2009) is a twenty-two hour fixed frame record of a horse in its stable or Pelages (2007) documents a woman in an ash-coloured fur coat attempting to remain on her hands and knees for five hours. Simple compositions present bodies caught in the passage of time; actions unfold a range of gestures at a glacial pace capturing changes in light and movement that provoke a diversity of interpretations for the viewer.

At CAG we present Lying Bodies, Standing Bodies (2014), a performance structured as a durational loop. One performer stands observing another lying on the gallery floor. When the standing performer is tired, he or she lies down indicating to the other to get up and stand. The period of each interval is determined by the performers, a continual role reversal described. Set in the Alvin Balkind gallery, the viewer happens upon this intimate act in progress.

Biography

Olivia Boudreau has been featured in various exhibitions across Canada and Europe including solo exhibitions at the Leonard and Bina Ellen Gallery, Concordia University, Montréal, Galerie Néon in Lyon, France and at the LOOP Festival in Barcelona. In 2011 she participated in the second Québec Triennial at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and was awarded the Pierre Ayot prize. Boudreau was shortlisted for the Sobey award in 2012.