Isabelle Anguita
Trace de forêt (Forest Simulacrum)
2022
Silicone, gelatin, fabric, synthetic thread, embroidery rings
5″ x 90″.
diameters: 4″, 6″, 6.5″, 8.5″, 9
Artist statement
The installation Forest Simulacrum consists of a cluster of 7-foot-tall fabric columns, adorned with cast silicone and gelatin molds of tree bark. Standing in as trees, they were made to recreate the memory and the satisfaction of a walk in the forest, while emphasizing the impossibility of this attempt. This work stems from the desire to create a copy that would partially reproduce the original experience while also denouncing the artificiality of our relationship with nature. The benefits of a walk in the forest for our mental well-being are now unquestionable. Since the pandemic, virtual overstimulation has made us all look for, or feel deprived of a patch of nature where we can recharge our batteries. However, in our capitalist society, our relationship to nature is experienced through its consumption; our very desire to be close endangers its sustainability. The ghostly, empty, and disembodied trees are a tragic allegory of their own disappearance. Thus, this installation presents an experience of post-apocalyptic renewal through the memory of a forest.
Artist’s biography
Isabelle Anguita is a Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist born in Oceania to French and Spanish parents, who migrated from Morocco to France, where she grew up. Anguita's pluridisciplinary practice involves painting, sculpture, and installation, and is informed by notions of identity and memory. Anguita holds a BA in painting from Montpellier and Aix-en-Provence University (1994). After immigrating to Montreal, she worked for ten years in the arts and in stage design before returning to her visual practice. Since then, she has had several solo exhibitions in Quebec (Musée Beaulne, Coaticook, 2022; Le Gesù, Montreal, 2013; Usine C, Montreal, 2012) as well as group exhibitions in Quebec and Ontario. Anguita is currently pursuing a BFA in Studio Arts at Concordia where she received the 2022 Outstanding Student Award, a prize awarded to a first year student in the sculpture program.
