this way/that way

In this way/that way, Michael Dumontier’s reductive works are at once sculpture, painting, collage, and drawing. Being unconcerned with these definitions, work develops through a series of improvisations with material and the air and space in between. Lines, rarely drawn or painted, are made with rough cuts of a saw blade, string, tenderly and meticulously extracted childrens’ drawings from Dumontier’s collection of child psychology textbooks, and negative space. The exhibition also features two small kinetic works. In one, Michael has included one of his source textbooks, open to a child’s drawing of a figure. A cut-out of the same figure, from a duplicate copy of the textbook, has been layed on top of the first. A motor pulls the drawing in and out of phase with itself, creating an image both disorienting and meditative.

The exhibition takes its title from a sculpture made by Adrian Williams for Jonathan Pylypchuk in 1995. A gesture between friends, this symbol of two arrows pointing in opposite directions labeled “this way” and “that way”, has gathering meaning for Michael and has inspired two new works in the exhibition.

Michael Dumontier lives and works in Winnipeg. Over the last fourteen years he has been involved in numerous collaborations. He co-founded the Royal Art Lodge collective in 1996 and remained a member until its end in 2008. He continues to work with Neil Farber, meeting every Wednesday night. He has also worked with Tom Elliott and Todd Martin, been part of Paul Butler and Guy Maddin’s Keyhole Experiment, and most recently produced a book edition with Micah Lexier. Having had solo shows in New York, Boston, and Padua, this is his first in Canada. The Royal Art Lodge has had solo exhibitions in New York (The Drawing Center), Toronto (Power Plant), Los Angeles (MOCA), Dublin, Madrid, Brussels, Burgos, London, and produced a major commission for the 2008 Liverpool Biennial.