Don’t Stick Your Arms and Legs Out of the Window. An Exhibition of the Works of Geneviève Castrée
A breathtaking selection of works by Geneviève Castrée, a truly creative mastermind.
Don't stick your arms and legs out the window. Exhibition of works of Geneviève Castrée
In the introduction to her Complete Works her husband Phil Elverum wrote: "A simple metaphor would be so nice right now. 'Geneviève was a bonfire in spring' or something like that, some easy way to explain who this person was.
But no, it's impossible. She was singular, unsummarizable. She was nothing less than her actual, unrepeatable self, on earth for just 35 years. Those who knew her resort to describing her dichotomies. She was so dark and such a goof, furiously angry and full of compassion, a messy slob who provided the best hospitality, an introverted party animal, confrontationally idealistic and sweetly romantic, sang so quiet and so loud. Radical. Extreme. So black and so white. Black hair, white face. Black ink on white paper. She was a bonfire in spring, and very much more. […]
She was born Geneviève Gosselin on April 9, 1981, in Québec City to a nineteen-year-old French-speaking mom and an English-speaking dad, almost like a baby embodiment of Canada's tugging cultural duality. She filled notebooks with enough material for five lifetimes. She wrote novels, poetry books, interview magazines and more."
This self-taught artist was swept away early by comics. She knew she would be a cartoonist from the age of nine. Castrée's self-published mini-comics brought her into the Montreal underground scene while she was a teenager and a life of unrelenting creativity followed. Obscure and beloved at the same time, touring the world for art exhibitions and concerts and hermitting through dark seasons, Castrée spent her adult life in the Pacific Northwest. She drew constantly, sculpted in porcelain, and released music under the name Ô Paon. In 2022, Drawn & Quarterly published a breathtaking collection of Castrée's work and life - Geneviève Castrée: Complete Works 1981-2016 - presenting rarely- or never-seen illustrations and comics, album covers, sculptures, letterpressed posters, studio scraps and notebook ideas.
Kaboom Animation Festival, as a part of the Focus on Canada, is presenting a selection of works of Geneviève Castrée, treating all imperfections that make us human. An exploration of human feelings, fears, relationships, fragility of mind, and the power of creatitivy.
This exhibition is accesible for free. Some of the works in this exhibition will be for sale.
