The Montreal artist Isabelle Hayeur holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in visual arts from the Université du Québec à Montréal. Her body of work, composed mainly of videos, large-format photographs, and in situ installations, is imbued with environmental issues and transformation of landscapes. In 2006 and 2007, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and Oakville Galleries presented Inhabiting: The Works of Isabelle Hayeur, a first retrospective of her work. Hayeur’s works are found throughout Canada, the United States, and Europe and are in numerous public collections, including those of the National Gallery of Canada and the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago.
Artwork description
In the agora of the Maison culturelle et communautaire de Montréal-Nord is installed a triptych composed of three vertical luminous cases. The backlit photographs in Songes portray interior spaces penetrated by elements of the outdoor landscape. A forest reaches into a room decorated with plants; a park path penetrates an office; and the sand on a riverbank covers the floor of a dining room. In the last image, the stretch of water is literally at the door of the room.
Through these photographic montages, the artist poetically draws our attention to the transformation of natural and rural environments. She underlines the huge contrast between natural and built-up spaces, and the rapid changes that natural environments have undergone in recent history.