Opening: Ed Pien, Under Water

Pierre-Francois Ouellette art contemporain
372 Ste-Catherine Ouest #216
Montreal, QC

Exhibition: Nov. 28 - Jan. 26, 2013
Vernissage Wednesday Nov. 28th 6-8pm

Pierre-Francois Ouellette art contemporain is proud to present a solo exhibition of current work by Ed Pien featuring exquisite new paper cut works and over eighty unique drawings exploring themes of under water life, sea monsters, and the imaginary. All works are available at www.pfoac.com, and a text by Karl-Gilbert Murray is published online to accompany the work.


Sediment, 2012 
ink on 3M reflector and shoji paper cut

Bloom, 2012 

ink on 3M reflector and shoji paper cut

Here's an excerpt from Ed Pien, Diving Into an Imaginary Water World -

Designed as an exploration of cultural diversity inspired by underwater flora and fauna a thousand leagues beneath the seas, the exhibition Under Water by Toronto artist Ed Pien dives into the heart of an unfathomably profound aesthetic. A meeting of the imaginary that swings between the decorative, ornamental aspect of calligraphed creatures rendered in the chinoiserie style, Ernst Haeckel's plates depicting sea life forms and phantasmagorical worlds, the exhibition illuminates two horizons that evoke a feeling of continuity between two cultures: the East and the West. One horizon, pinwheeling into the exoticism of the Other towards a better mutual understanding, is comprised of a collection of drawings entitled Two Worlds. The other, four paper-cuts of interwoven water dreams and mysteries, cultivates a fascination for the grotesque and constrains the aberrant to better tame it. 

Thus, these graphic and cut out representations serve as a reminder that marine biodiversity provides a metaphor that, as interculturalism emerges from the depths of the white page swarming with anguished ecosystems, describes a relationship between cultural metissage and, well beyond appearances, collides with our essential "otherness". Trying to understand how the process of enculturation complicates our relationship to space/place and with our surroundings, Pien reveals the identity construct at the centre of the work. He does not summon the Other; he goes to meet it. Rather than keeping it at a distance, he explores various possibilities of engaging in a dialogue rooted in a fantastical visual language that allows him to create a middle ground, a liberating space where each and every one might easily situate him or herself in the world and adapt to the exoticism of theOther.