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Grace Ebert More
“The fairies will find us if we leave a trail.” All images © Katherine Duclos, shared with permission
Through LEGO Compositions, Katherine Duclos Grounds Chaos in Color
March 7, 2025
Art
Jackie Andres
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Katherine Duclos begins each artwork with a color palette and no plan. Placing modular LEGO bricks one by one, the Vancouver-based artist intuitively builds each dense composition, commencing a repetitive process in which she introduces paint before rearranging again.
Duclos’ most recent solo show, aptly titled The light and color we carry, reinforces the overarching significance of color within the artist’s practice. She created her recent collection during a great shift as she moved to a new home with her family. The neurodivergent artist held onto color as a grounding force, creating connections between the specific hues and lights she would miss in her previous home.
Detail of “Temper your touch please” (2024)
A statement from the Vancouver Art Gallery reads:
Times of transition and upheaval are particularly difficult for autistic families, and Katherine’s need to order her world became more intense as her home became more chaotic and the future seemed unclear. To better prepare herself for the changes, she focused on regulatory work that enabled her to feel a sense of control and order amidst the chaos.
Having disabilities with spatial processing and rotating images causes Duclos to run into some obstacles with the diagrams and instructions that accompany the traditional LEGO kit. “I never enjoyed Lego until my son handed me four flat pieces stuck together when he was 5 and said, ‘I thought you’d like these colors next to each other.’ That was my light bulb moment,” she says. Made to hang at any orientation, each vibrant amalgamation encourages movement and fluctuation despite the stiff, blocky nature of the material.
Duclos is creating work in preparation for a forthcoming solo exhibition in January next year. Keep tabs on her work via Instagram and the artist’s website.
“Fireflies and lilacs” (2024)
“Let your sad light be a beacon (Raincouver)” (2024)
Detail of “I will ahead of you and scaffold the light so you can see the path forward” (2024)
“Sometimes the asymmetry is so subtle it’s subversive” (2024)
“You can make your own plans, the day will make itself” (2024)
“Temper your touch please” (2024)
“I will ahead of you and scaffold the light so you can see the path forward” (2024)
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“cottage bubble.” All images courtesy of Julie Liger-Belair, shared with permission
Cozy Homes and Woodland Wonders Abound in Julie Liger-Belair’s Collages
December 10, 2024
Art
Kate Mothes
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From flowery headdresses to botanical guises to houses perched on the tippy-top of tree stumps, Julie Liger-Belair’s collages (previously) invite us into a whimsical world. In paper and found objects, she dives into personal stories and the emotional connections binding us to nature, place, and a sense of belonging.
In her Scrappy Blablah series, for example, the artist compiles various cutouts into playful compositions that provide a way of processing external information, coming about “when the paper scraps on my table decide to embody my feelings about the world outside my studio,” she says. “But they also provide the antidote.”
“Vietnam 1”
Liger-Belair and her family recently visited Vietnam, spurred by their eldest daughter, who was adopted from the country and hadn’t been back since. New works inspired by the trip include larger collages with painted elements on wood panels, in addition to found objects, vintage photos, and snapshots the artist took on the trip.
She continues themes of home and comfort through the motif of the house, which often encompasses figures, flowers, patterns, and vines that unfurl beyond their confines. In other compositions, the house shrinks in size, as giant mushrooms and blossoms coexist alongside woodland creatures in fanciful landscapes.
Liger-Belair has also revisited ideas from earlier assemblage work, making small, three-dimensional pieces in sardine tins and other found boxes. “I have always loved collecting things and using them in pieces,” she tells Colossal. “My experiments with resin and ceramics have also made their way into this series (called) tinned stories, and they are more fun, dreamlike pieces.”
Find much more on Liger-Belair’s website, Instagram, and Behance.
“the upside of down” from the ‘tinned stories’ series
“forest blablah”
“blablah in the garden”
“house bubble 14”
“house bubble 18”
“mountain landscape” from the ‘tinned stories’ series
“wide awake,” plus another piece from the studio
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Art#acrylic painting
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Kate Mothes More
