Artist
Martine Viale

© Martine Viale, Intros Muros I, 2012. Photo Henry Chan.

Canada / France
https://martineviale.wordpress.com/

Contextual and site-specific, Martine Viale’s work is based on action art and is grounded in a practice of presence. Working regularly in the public space and unusual places that can facilitate unpredictable encounters with passers-by, she is interested in the momentary loss of landmarks and in the use of actions as a tool for analyzing certain personal and social conditioning. The body in action is at the centre of her practice and she is inspired by the interval between art and the everyday and by the multiple bridges of encounter between the two. She uses time both as a driving force and as a means of spatial and relational negotiation.

Born in Montreal, Quebec, Martine Viale lives and works in Perpignan, France. Since 1999, her work have been presented in several festivals, galleries and site-specific context across Canada and internationally in Brazil, Israel, Poland, Cyprus, United States, Brittany, France, Belgium, Serbia, The Philippines, Japan, Scotland, Spain, Ukraine and Denmark.

She has also given several intensive performance art workshops in Montreal (Studio 303; La Centrale galerie powerhouse), Chicago (Defibrillator Performance Art Gallery), as well as in France (Frac Lorraine, Metz; Le Quartz, scène nationale de Brest; Espace o25rjj, Loupian), Belgium (La Cambre, Brussels), Ukraine (School of Performance, Lviv), New Castle Upon Tyne (Northumbria University) and Spain (Acciónmad!18, Madrid).

Performance
Intra Muros I by Martine Viale

Intra Muros I, a performance installation by Martine Viale

Through self-displacement, successive actions and minimal materials, Intra Muros I proposes a sense of contemplation, as the artist gradually tries to accumulate meanings through a constant folding and unfolding of images. Pursuing a process based on persistence, Viale’s work suggests multiple stages of working, rather then presenting a completed product. Transformation through time and accumulation plays a major role in the elaboration of the work. The artist’s body becomes a “doing body” engaged in creating, layering and collecting traces of actions, which progressively transform the space and the artist herself.

Performance installation in progress: February 2 & 3, from 2:00pm–7:00pm
Closing performance action: February 3 @ 8:00pm
Artist talk: February 4 @ 1:00pm

© Martine Viale, Intros Muros I, 2012. Photo Henry Chan.

Performance Yellow

This fragrance opens us to the question, has the show started? It's winter, the theatre is colder than the street and the room is filled with people and all their winter smells: wet faux leather, down, too much shampoo, and beer breath. The atmosphere is a trickster. Am I late, am I early?

Top Notes

yellow mandarin, mimosa

Middle Notes

honey, chamomile, salt

Base Notes

narcissus, guaiac wood, piss, beer