gallery arcturus

Toronto ... Errance, an exhibition at Gallery Arcturus of photography by Dominique Cruchet and painting by Joan Cullen. The paintings are large format oils and mixed media on paper. The photographic images are shown in three categories, black and white silver prints, digital color prints and projected digital images. All these are from such different places as Yemen, Thaïland, China, France and Canada. The work mirrors the life style of the artists. The large format oils and black and white prints demand a sedentary existence whereas the projections and smaller works allow for roaming about. This the underlying meaning of j’erre, j’aére et gère.

Born in France, Dominique Cruchet recalls that his first encounter with images occurred in Paris at the Cinematheque du Palais de Chaillot. Inspired by what he saw, he began to take photographs of the streets. Later, when he adopted a travelling lifestyle, this practice became a study and he developed what he calls the eye of a ‘flaneur’. It wasn’t until 1982 that he formalized his studies in Visual Arts at the University of Ottawa and in Art History at the Sorbonne. His years as a student supported the documentary orientation which he had had from the beginning. Travelling and photography have continued hand in hand. Dominique’s images bring us into an intimate relationship with the far away landscapes through the vehicle of his seeing. The ordinary, the mundane, are made extraordinary within the frame of his seeing.

Joan Cullen says of herself that philosophy and travel have been the constants in her pictorial research, but it was during a long sejour in rural France that she learned the exotic character of everyday life. Painting and drawing have become a means of attaining a quality of attention that goes underneath language and grounds it. Joan says, “One elects oneself to do this work and then it must be assumed. Certain works name the places that are at once the landmarks of a permanent exile and the subject itself, others wrestle with the desire to approach or even get inside the subject. Against formulas and like violence, I propose with Paul Klee an endless study of the nature of nature...”.

Joan Cullen and Dominique Cruchet have been companions in work and travel, exhibiting together since 1991. Photography and painting are normally considered unsympathetic to each other but the collaboration of Joan and Dominique brings these different media into counterpoint, the view of one complementing the other. The result is a many faceted perception of the environments that they have explored together and a richer experience for the viewer.