Epiphytes at Dusk
For nearly two decades Canadian artist Laura St. Pierre has explored her relationship with the natural environment by way of a multidisciplinary art practice. With her photographs, video works and sculptural installations, ignored derelict spaces become richly transformed through enlivened interaction with the landscape.
On view at VIVIANEART, 13 January thru 15 February 2023, St. Pierre’s newest series of photographs, expands upon her exploration of a lone figure, the Sower, who tends to rag-tag gardens. In these new works, some of the Sower’s greenhouses have become portable. They are carried on the back, pushed on wheels or carts, and worn as masks. The Sower’s relationship with the plants becomes more intimate and more sustaining. Her breath, the heat from her body, and the humidity from her skin sustain non-human life in an otherwise sterile world. The human sustains the beyond human, proposing an alternative to the current extractive relationship.
St. Pierre has earned Bachelor’s degrees from the University of British Colombia and the University of Alberta and completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at Concordia University in Montreal.
