55 Centre Ave. Toronto
December 3rd, 2012 - March 10th, 2013
Opening reception: Dec. 3rd, 6:30-8pm
Curated by Wayne Baerwaldt
The Textile Museum of Canada and Illingworth Kerr Gallery presents: Stitched & Drawn - an exhibition of recent work by Canadian artist, Richard Boulet.
This IKG-organized touring exhibition includes more than thirty works by the Edmonton based artist, addressing issues of an eventual spirituality through the cultivation of mental health. His practice is a multifaceted one that includes mixed media drawings and fibre sculptures incorporating quilting and cross-stitching techniques. Boulet's work has probed subjects including his personal history of schizophrenia and references homelessness, psychosis, crisis intervention, family issues, medication, and coping strategies.
Richard Boulet has worked and lived in Edmonton for the past twelve years. He has a BFA from the University of Manitoba School of Art, Winnipeg, and an MFA from the University of Alberta, Edmonton. Boulet has exhibited at Plug In ICA, Winnipeg, the 2007 Alberta Biennale, Creative Growth, Oakland (in association with Paul Butler's Collage Party and Matthew Higgs) and Keyano College Art Gallery, Fort McMurray, Alberta.
The artist's latest body of fibre work is decidedly reflexive in nature, confronting past behaviours and decisions that have impacted negatively on his mental state. Boulet's time-intensive working process provides the artist an opportunity to contemplate the past and, stitch by careful stitch, to put things right. As he explains, "To use quilting and cross-stitching in a body of work that alludes to the psychological dilemmas of redressing regrets seems appropriate, in that there is a strong sense of comfort and self care in these two fibre techniques. Things can't be so bad, so confused, so basically wrong, if the resulting product produced instills a sense of a home well tended, eventually."
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