Nicolas Grenier, Andrée-Anne Mercier

So It’s Happening
Nicolas Grenier

CURATOR'S TEXT

At first glance, the use of saturated color gradients could be what binds Nicolas Grenier and Andrée-Anne Mercier. However, their connection goes way beyond aesthetics: these two artists take a critical look at the same contemporary issues, namely the dominant hierarchies and the tensions between social classes.

The painting So It’s Happening by Nicolas Grenier displays a gradation of warm colors which ends towards the outside with cold colors, going from blue to orange. The same way the light breaks through the cold darkness, the center diffuses into a white circle. Four rectangular waves overlap and amplify the gradient. This iconography inspires change and transformation. At the bottom of each colored rectangle are four sentences: “It's been in the air for a while_ And I'm totally in favor of it don't get me wrong_ I guess I just didn't realize what it implied_ You know, with family, friends, my career, stuff I took for granted”. Nicolas thus refers to the paradigm shifts that have taken place in recent years, in particular to the various emancipation movements that have been amplified in the pandemic era.  

Sunrise is a video game produced in 2021 by Andrée-Anne Mercier in collaboration with Frédérique Bordeleau and Sandrine Cadieux. A woman's experience in a patriarchal society and the anxiety associated with it are the central themes addressed in the game. A scene from the game has been carefully captured, as this quote can be read, displayed on the wall of a pink building: “Our queer imaginations threaten patriarchy”. It is the result of a collaboration with the urban “colleureuses” of Collage féminicide Montréal. This mise en abyme stages the poster within the poster. Everything is enveloped in the colorful universe of Andrée-Anne, inspired by her travels to seaside towns and the nostalgia for digital games from the beginning of the Internet.

Put together, the works of Nicolas Grenier and Andrée-Anne Mercier question the system and invite us to embrace change. Nicolas' practice combines color gradients and writings that reflect a personal research on societal changes. Andrée-Anne develops digital research that evokes empathy through an immersive and informative experience.

*Traduction: C'est dans l'air depuis un moment _ Et je suis totalement en faveur de ça, ne vous méprenez pas _ Je suppose que je n'ai pas réalisé ce que cela impliquait _ Vous savez, avec la famille, les amis, ma carrière, des choses que je considérais comme acquises.