Hide and Seek
Mélanie Rocan
new miniature paintings
October 11 - November 9, 2024
Hide and Seek is a series of 26 acrylic paintings on wood in miniature scale, all from 2024. This body of work depicts the female figure in various natural environments, either in contemplation, searching for something, trying to find an escape or hiding behind veils and natural elements.
With all the figures in my paintings there is an inner quest to hide within and to seek, and a self-reflection that touches on a spiritual level. Hide and Seek represents a journey within the soul to seek spiritual wisdom from within, and the understanding of knowledge that comes from one’s inner self and the divine force around us. Quiet moments spent alone give us the ability to see beyond the material world and to understand the interconnectedness of all things. Not only are the figures in that space of contemplation, but I also hope to pull the viewer in to look carefully at the miniature scale with an intimate and quiet gaze. The rendering of this new body of work is important. I want to capture in fine detail the essence and gesture of the subjects. I want to consider a balance of miniature marks in relation to more gestural flowing paint. I believe that my experience painting in large format has given me the ability to allow freedom of gesture while I paint, and to pay attention to this harmony.
For me, the act of painting and being in nature creates a space of peace and healing that allows me to be able to deal with mental and emotional struggles and social anxieties. Painting allows me to create work that focuses on the instinctive state of the mind—the ups and downs, the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the bad, the battle of overcoming the shadows of difficulty and grief and allowing ease and joy to exist. In my work I wanted to focus on sources of light, reflections and patterns which are symbolic of the spiritual transformation of one’s inner reflections and outwardly meditative visions.
Some of the veiled figures are inspired by the weeping statues that I was able to experience in Paris, France at the Pere Lachaise cemetery and other locations around the city. The figures in my work are often frozen in a statue state, caught in a moment in time. I have always had an interest in cemeteries, ever since as a young child I had to walk through a cemetery to get to school every morning in the small town where I grew up in Manitoba. For me, cemeteries are a place for contemplation, sacred spaces that prompt quiet meditation and where the silence whispers volumes about life and death.
-- Mélanie Rocan, 2024
MÉLANIE ROCAN (b. 1980, La Broquerie, MB) is a Franco-Manitoban artist. She has a BFA from the University of Manitoba (2003) and an MFA from the University of Concordia in Montreal (2008).
Rocan says, "During the making of the work there is a constant shifting between building and re-building within the framework of memory, allowing for new territory to be explored. I often let the painting linger between movement and stillness, and this is captured in the final product. I am also mindful of contradictions, which I find interesting — the dualities that are in constant flux, the oppositions and harmonies within the human condition. There exists a dichotomy between the inner emotional condition and the psychological unease with the environment depicted in the paintings."
Rocan is a three-time semi-finalist in the RBC Painting Competition. In 2012 – 2013 her work was the subject of a survey exhibition, Souvenir involuntaire, organized by the Doris McCarthy Gallery at the University of Toronto Scarborough campus. This exhibition toured to the Kenderdine Art Gallery at the University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, SK) and Plug-In ICA (Winnipeg, MB). The bilingual catalogue includes an essay by Josée Drouin-Brisebois.
Rocan is the recipient of awards and grants from the Canada Council, Manitoba and Winnipeg Arts Council. Her work has also been included in numerous group exhibitions including Crossing Natures, with Janet Morton, Christiane Pflug and Joyce Wieland, at the Tom Thomson Gallery in Owen Sound in 2016, My Winnipeg, at La Maison Rouge, in Paris and the Carte Blanche painting survey at MOCCA Toronto in 2008.
Collections include the Agnes Etherington Art Centre (Kingston, ON), Winnipeg Art Gallery, Doris McCarthy Gallery (Toronto), TD Bank (Toronto), RBC (Toronto) and the Manitoba Arts Council, and many private collections in Canada. Rocan has taught at the University of Manitoba.