up front w/ ROBIN ARSENEAULT features seven dynamic clusters of plates, intimate in nature, with gestural mark-making in black underglaze and gold lustre. These surfaces are adorned with suggestive and playful imagery and are rooted in Arseneault’s penchant for drawing and her intuitive consideration of materiality.

Sculpture and image-making are something that go hand-in-hand for Arseneault. While creating objects in the three dimension, she simultaneously explores similar themes within the 2D. Together, they become a whole, and develop a language based on the relationship of forms and repetition of shapes. Objects are stripped of their original context and meaning only to lay bare inherent formal qualities. The result of which leaves fragmented shapes and forms transformed into what can be seen as hieroglyphics of an unknown language. It is here where the power of the fragmented image (or disruption in meaning) speaks to the subversion of power through subtle humour and curiosity. “Within “my” own art practice of 20+ years, I often use humour as a way of opening up this dialogue and inherently think of how the viewer, and their personal history, are a key player in “completing” the work.”

Robin Arseneault is a graduate of the Alberta College of Art & Design (BFA, 1998) and the Edinburgh College of Art (MFA, 2005). A semi-finalist for the Sobey Art Award in 2007, she received the Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award in 2008 and has been awarded grants from the Canada Council for the Arts, the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and Alberta Heritage. Her practice is diverse: sculpture, drawing, printmaking, photography, collage, animation, video and the creation of artist-books. She has an active exhibition record and has shown across Canada and in the USA, Scotland, Germany, Italy, and The Netherlands. Arseneault has work placed in private and public collections, including the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, Art Gallery of Alberta, Nickle Galleries, Scotiabank Art Collection, Fairmont Hotel Group, La Maison Simons Department Store among others. She is currently working on her second commissioned public sculpture, called Balancing Act, set to unveil summer of 2024.