Monique Allain - HORIZONS

GROUNDING EXPERIENCES AND HABITATIONS - Connecting with the space

IDENTITY - Self Connections - Memories and experimentation of an expanded time in the present

HORIZONS - Between photography and painting

Orange Horizon Variation 1, Horizon series, 3 editions, Digital C Print glossy of hybrid of photograph and painting, 39.4 x 78.8 in, 2017.

New Horizon 11, Horizon series, 3 editions, Digital C Print glossy of hybrid of photograph and painting, 39.4 x 78.8 in, 2017.

Corroded Horizon 1, Horizon series, 3 editions, Digital C Print glossy of hybrid of photograph and painting, 39.4 x 70 in, 2018.

New Blue Vertical Horizon, 2018, Horizon series, edition 1/3, diasec print of hybrid photography and painting, 54”x 18”.

New Red Vertical Horizon, 2018, Horizon series, edition 1/3, diasec print of hybrid photography and painting, 54”x 18”.

Square Orange Horizon, Horizon series, 3 editions, Digital C Print glossy of hybrid of photograph and painting, 70.9 x 70.9 in, 2013.

Square Green Horizon, Horizon series, 3 editions, Digital C Print glossy of hybrid of photograph and painting, 70.9 x 70.9 in, 2013.

Composition of Vertical Horizons, Horizon series, Triptych, 3 editions, Digital C Print glossy of hybrid of photograph and painting, 106.3 x 106.3 in (106.3 x 35,4 in each) x 70.9 in, 2013.

Square Horizon Codex, Horizon series, 3 editions, Digital C Print glossy of hybrid of photograph and painting, 43.3 x 43.3 in, 2014.

Horizon 1 in Three Parts, Horizon series, Triptych, 3 editions, Digital C Print glossy of hybrid of photograph and painting, 39.4 x 118.2 in (39.4 x 39.4 in each), 2013.

Horizon 2 in Three Parts, Horizon series, Triptych, 3 editions, Digital C Print glossy of hybrid of photograph and painting, 39.4 x 118.2 in (39.4 x 39.4 in each), 2013.

Horizon Fiction 1, Horizon series, Digital C Print glossy of hybrid of photograph and painting, 40 x 80 in, 2013.

Horizon Fiction Blue, Horizon series, Digital C Print glossy of hybrid of photograph and painting, 40 x 80 in, 2013.

Dawn, Horizon series, Horizon series, 3 editions, Digital C Print glossy of hybrid of photograph and painting, in, 2012.

Horizon Fiction 11, Horizon series, Horizon series, 3 editions, Digital C Print glossy of hybrid of photograph and painting, 39.4 x 78.8 in, 2012.

Fiction of the red horizon 1, 2012, Horizon series, diasec print of hybrid, photography and painting, 22” x 39 ½”.

Horizon Fiction 8, Horizon series, Horizon series, 3 editions, Digital C Print glossy of hybrid of photograph and painting, 21 x 39.4 in, 2012.

Horizon Fiction 9, Horizon series, Horizon series, 3 editions, Digital C Print glossy of hybrid of photograph and painting, 21 x 39.4 in, 2012.

Horizon Fiction 7, Horizon series, Horizon series, 3 editions, Digital C Print glossy of hybrid of photograph and painting, 39.4 x 78.8 in, 2012.

Horizon Fiction 2, Horizon series, Horizon series, 3 editions, Digital C Print glossy of hybrid of photograph and painting, 21 x 39.4 in, 2012.

Horizon Fiction 6, Horizon series, Horizon series, 3 editions, Digital C Print glossy of hybrid of photograph and painting, 21 x 39.4 in, 2012.

ESSAY 2 WITH ITS NUMERICAL LANDSCAPE

Electronic Collage of Digital Photographs and numeric fonts

2014 - 2007

Essay 2 with its numerical landscape
Diptych with two plexiglass prints. The first, electronic collage of photographic horizons, and the second, digital image constructed with numerical sources, 40 x 53.1 in (19.7 x 53.1 in each), 2014-2007.

ATMOSPHERIC PERSPECTIVES

Atmospheric Perspective 4, day view, landscapes made with Japanese paper torn on black cardboard in acrylic box, 11.4 x 31.5 in, 2014.

Atmospheric Perspective 5, day view, landscapes made with Japanese paper torn on black cardboard in acrylic box, 11.4 x 31.5 in, 2014.

Atmospheric Perspective 6, day view, landscapes made with Japanese paper torn on black cardboard in acrylic box, 11.4 x 31.5 in, 2014.

Atmospheric Perspective 6, night view, landscapes made with Japanese paper torn on black cardboard in acrylic box, 11.4 x 31.5 in, 2014.

HORIZON LINE - OTHER PORTRAITS OF LANDSCAPES

Photographic Installation

Other Portraits of a Landscape are a series of 9 back-light photographs of collages with torn Japanese paper, assembled in Polaroid boxes. A look away reads the images as photographs of real landscapes. It is only by looking closely that the torn paper is identified. The set arranged next to each other, forms a horizon line. When the series is arranged with the dark side down, the landscape is diurnal. When on the contrary, the light part is downwards, a night landscape is seen.

Horizon Line (day view), installation with 9 back-light photographs of collages with torn Japanese paper, assembled in Polaroid boxes, 4.13 x 54.53 x 1.18 in, 2014.

Other Portrait of a Landscape 1 (day view), back-light photograph of collage with torn Japanese paper, assembled in a Polaroid box, 4.13 x 5.71 x 1.18 in, 2014.

Other Portrait of a Landscape 2, showing a day view.

Other Portrait of a Landscape 2, showing a night view.

VERTICAL CONDENSED HORIZON

2014

Digital image constructed with eleven photographs of things and horizontal situations that the eye perceives on a daily basis. The pixel resolution of the photographs was radically reduced, and then radically increased, in order to eliminate definition of the content. Then, the images were gathered and stacked to form a vertical horizon.

Vertical Condensed Horizon, Plexiglass photo print, 77 x 21 in, 2014.

HORIZON IN 8 VOLUMES

2013

HORIZON IN 8 VOLUMES, Installation, 168" x 11.2" x 32.3" height, 2013. Installation presented in the solo exhibition HORIZONS, curated by Tom van Vliet, at Lourdina Jean Rabieh Gallery, São Paulo, 2013.

Eight open books with pages made of white torn Japanese paper are lined up on two showcase tables of 82.7” x 11.2” x 32.3” height (each), designed for the installation. The overlapping pages constitute an atmospheric perspective of horizons. This allow the construction of a composite image that expands horizontally and can be read on both sides. On one side, the image composes a dawn and on the other, a dusk. In the case of placing the covers upwards with the books open, a line also forms. In the same way, closed books make up another figure.

Open books aligned. The pages are torn sheets of Japanese paper.

Box with eight books from the installation HORIZON IN 8 VOLUMES.

Perspective of the showcase glass table.

Elevation of the showcase glass table, front and side views.

HORIZONS - SOME WORDS

HORIZONS are landscapes from an undefined field between reality and fiction. They are places of dream, of desire, of reunion with our primordial human condition.

HORIZON is the “circumscribed”, the “achievable”, the “present time limit”. It is a referential concept that gives us the conscious perception of “SER”[1] and “ESTAR”[2] here and now. The horizon define a potential of possibilities and range of motion, in which the AR we breathe is contained. It is a realm of existence in the world.

In large urban centers such as São Paulo, dense "verticality" is dominant and interrupts the field of vision. The surrounding space has shrunk radically, and with it, the AR and the prospects for movement. We almost don’t see horizon anymore. There is a feeling of suffocation and claustrophobia. How to adjust to this reality?

The constructed poetic images are mutants and hybrids fictions of horizon & space. They attempt to subvert the "verticality" of the configuration of the urban space, so to make visible the horizons contained in the little things of everyday life.

Works of these two series present some crossings between the media that constitute the contemporary image. Paintings, photographs and videos resulting from experiments and actions of the sensitive body function as autonomous pieces or as base elements for compositions of hybrid works. Media blend and dialogue with each other. The immobility and movement of the images, their flatness and volume when incorporating the shape of the objects in which they are inscribed, instigate a reflection on the relationships they establish with space and time.

The various forms of the image today converge to a same territory. This makes increasingly difficult to differentiate it into categories, both in terms of technique and in terms of the way of representation and presentation. Intermediate zones expand and constitute a common place in which nature and origin are lost, where the limits between physical reality and fiction are dissolved.

The works seeks to reveal the common aspects nowadays between painting, photography and video. What is pictorial, cinematographic, photographic and sonorous in the contemporary image? The idea is to investigate the potentialities and the implications that arise from the complexity of it.

[1] “BEING” refers to a permanent condition – expansion of time.

[2] “BEING” refers to a transitory location or condition – expansion of space.

Other Portrait of a Landscape 2, showing a day view.

Other Portrait of a Landscape 2, showing a night view.

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