Through the metaphor of the quilt, Mending reflects the sheer effort of enjoying life. Emotional tensions, like the tension between the twinned experiences of hardship and ease, are a motif throughout Mélanie Rocan’s painterly work, here manifest in the ultra-material, apparently documentary mediums of textile, video, and photography. Constructed of second hand material, the 11-metre-long quilt is adorned with text from the King James translation of Ecclesiastes 3:1–8. This passage, which begins, “To every thing there is a season,” lives in the collective consciousness as a contradiction itself, an instruction to find comfort in one’s own powerlessness; discover one’s agency in the relinquishing of control.

“[T]he patchwork comes together in one blanket, it leaves us with a final question: As we are all living in this world, how do we continue with respect for our surroundings in balance and harmony with nature?” -Mélanie Rocan

EXHIBITION BROCHURE

Mélanie Rocan’s artistic activities include a survey exhibition organized by Ann MacDonald at the Doris McCarthy Gallery in Scarborough in 2011, which included a catalogue and essay by José Drouin-Brisebois, the contemporary curator of the National Gallery of Canada. Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions; Crossing Natures at Tom Thomson Gallery in Owen Sound, My Winnipeg at La Maison Rouge, Paris, and Carte Blanche painting survey at MOCCA Toronto in 2008. She was a three-time semi-finalist in the RBC painting competition exhibition, which traveled to galleries across Canada including the Power Plant in Toronto, the Musée d’art contemporain in Montreal, and the Contemporary Art Gallery of Vancouver. Her work has been reviewed in Border Crossings Magazine, McClean’s Magazine, and the Globe and Mail.

Bring your class or community group for a tour and activity with the AGSM’s ART CONNECTS program!

ARTS CONNECTS

The artist would like to thank the Manitoba Arts Council for project support.