Pascal Grandmaison uses film, video, photography and sculpture to explore and investigate the relation of the part to the whole, and ‘how the experience of viewing a work is mediated by the act of capturing an image’. Grandmaison often works in portraiture to reflect this, and displays the interest to the inner self.
“My work I about the power of thought that one can have over things, others people, on the world around us and our own internal universe.” – National Gallery of Canada
At the National Gallery, Ottawa, a portrait from the “Glass” series is displayed on its own, showing the viewer a snippet of the large scale portraiture and the impact of Grandmaisons’ work. The series has a total of nine portraits in which a ‘young person holds a glass panel that extends over the entire surface of the image, except for the right side’ (Grandmaison), where the subject’s hand holds the edge of the glass. Within these portraits, there is a focus on the image making, reflection and flat surface. There is a repetition in all; they all hold the glass with the same hand, arm at a right angle, head down and eyes lowered to the floor, with body aligned with the camera’s plane. There is a small reflection of the camera in each, making the photographer and subject united and separated through the glass.
Charlotte Abraham Art 