Evelyne Leblanc-Roberge

My name is Evelyne Leblanc-Roberge. At the center of my artistic practice are images, usually taken with a camera, printed, projected, on screens, bounded in a book, sent by mail, wrapped around objects, or carefully placed in a room. My projects generally involve acts of close observation of the physical spaces I (and/or my collaborators) inhabit, whether it’s the details of a dusty waiting room green plant, the texture and wood grain of my desktop, the corner of sky to be seen from a small window, or the dance of paper and wind.

How we appropriate, occupy and mark the structures we live and work in are initial questions I pose when starting my projects. I am compelled and fascinated by the ways in which attention (or lack thereof) leads to consequential (or subtle) shifts in perception at the level of the everyday. I incorporate trompe l’oeil and camouflage techniques, double-takes and shifting point of views as a method for destabilizing and making the experience of the work an activity in which the whole body is involved. My projects often weave together personal narratives, fictions, coincidences and an awareness of the absurd.

—

I was born in a small francophone coastal village in eastern Canada and lived in Montreal for over a decade before I moved to the United States in 2009 to complete an MFA in Electronic Integrated Arts at Alfred University (Alfred, NY). I am currently an Associate Professor of Art and Lens-Based Media at the University of Rochester (Rochester, NY) and the co-director of the University’s Art New York program which runs every spring semester in NYC. Over the last decade, I have explored various avenues for collaboration. I have worked with dancers, choreographers and scenographers to elaborate multimedia performances in site-specific venues for the project Letter to the World. I also have co-curated and organized art events taking place in unusual venues such as a vacant bank and former church for the projects The City is Asleep and Dreaming and Compartmented. My most recent book Wall+Paper was created in collaboration with incarcerated writers and artists serving life sentences in prisons across USA. I am currently working on a project on waiting spaces. Gardening and writing very short stories have been cathartic these past months.