Exhibition Review: Terre Fertile

In collaboration with the Festival Accès Asie and the Maison de la culture Côte-des-Neiges, Artasiam presents its first exhibition Terre Fertile from May 11^th to June 12^th, 2022.

Terre Fertile explores the theme of cultural (up)rooting through a vegetal, poetic, and delicate imagination. With the arrival of spring, nature reclaims its rights. It is the beginning of a new cycle where the land becomes fertile again. Photographed or interpreted through painting, plant life is a symbol of the link that unites humans and nature for the artists Jenny Chen, Bhavya Dixit, and Jany Young, and a symbol of the fragile cycle of life and death for photographers JG+Shi  and Quang Hai Nguyen.

Jenny Chen is a Chinese Canadian artist living in Toronto. Her work uses symbols to create otherworldly environments while considering themes of existentialism and spirituality. Her paintings represent a vegetalized version of the human body, where the vases become the body, the plants symbolize the heart, while the vines and extended roots evoke the veins and the nervous system.

Bhavya Dixit is a Montreal artist of Indian origin. Her paintings are influenced by a 2500-year-old ancestral technique, Madhubani, which represents nature and traditional Hindu events. Bhavya pays special tribute to the memory of her grandfather and to the many memories she shared with him in her homeland. “The theme of the exhibition represents that, and it brings back all the beautiful memories I have with my grandfather. Memories that I can share now through my paintings with the people who visit the exhibition and celebrate the essence of my grandfather with all of them” explains Bhavya.

Jany Young is an artist of Korean origin, residing in La Pocatière. Through her paintings incorporating a traditional aesthetic, the artist reinvents the life of plants and the energy of vegetal nature, pure, infinite, and warm. Her project consists of finding a vegetable food microcosm to which we belong. Jany looks and observes the plants that inspire her in scenes of which we, humans, are also a part. “Plants represent life – ours and that of nature – and my works allow us to see plants from a new perspective, one where they are intimately linked to us and our survival” precises Jany, “and without a ‘Terre fertile’ (fertile land) we would never survive”.

Yang and Jean-Guillaume, alias JG + Shi, form a duo of Sino-French photographers, based in Montreal. The work of the two photographers is inspired by their own migratory journey, similar to the life cycle of flowers. Every day, flowers offer us new possibilities, new colours and smells. Although each flower has its own meaning, they simultaneously celebrate life, death, love, and mourning.

Quang Hai Nguyen is a Montreal-based photographer of Vietnamese origin. In his photographic series "to: the moon,” Quang Hai examines nocturnal landscapes and the feeling of loneliness and ephemerality that emanates from them. His photographs reveal the endless cycle of life and death, where nature manifests itself in the form of symbolic figures imitating the fragile and lonely state of our being. For Hai, the thematic of the exhibition offers an opportunity to question ourselves, together, and to understand that the cultural identity path is not solitary. “I'm dealing with this idea of ​​loneliness that happens when you get older, this idea of ​​the ephemeral, of ​​losing the people you love. These themes are shared with the other artists because we question the idea of ​​growth, death, which is the most real aspect that we know because we are inevitably aligned towards that. I find that by acknowledging the brevity of our lives, we realize the importance of making projects that express our emotions.”

As part of the Asian Heritage Month, Terre fertile is a celebration of Canada's multicultural richness with a special focus on the artistic production of Asian-Canadian artists, who, like the flora depicted in their works, has taken root in Canada's fertile land.

We, Artasiam’s team, thank from the bottom of our heart the Maison de la Culture Côte-des-Neiges for their support and for giving us a space to do the exhibition, the Festival Accès Asie for their trust and for the wonderful opportunity to be part of their program. We sincerely thank the five artists, Jenny Chen, Bhavya Dixit, JG+Shi, Quang Hai Nguyen and Jany Young for their time and support, and all the public that came to our opening!

From left to right: Yang Shi, Khosro Berahmandi, Quang Hai Nguyen, Jany Young, Amandine Davre, Bhavya Dixit, Mariana Morales.

May is the Asian Heritage Month, but also Artasiam’s anniversary! May we continue this adventure all together!