Alter Ego

A traveling exhibition that gets better every year, « Alter Ego » by painter Marie Montiel examines the relationship between humans and animals, a universal subject. While offering a game of comparison, the exhibit raises a number of questions in understanding the other.

Are there similarities between humans and animals?

We are sometimes struck by the resemblance between a dog and its master. These concordances do not only concern the canine breed. They extend to the entire animal kingdom. Our eyes sometimes carry the same gentleness, the same fear, the same questioning.

Charles Darwin demonstrated the richness of animal emotional life in his work, Jean de La Fontaine relied on the character resemblances between man and animal to write his timeless fables, and the physiognomonists Giambattista della Porta and Charles Le Brun recognized in every human face the presence of animal features. Recent ethological studies show us that we have certain physical similarities and that our expressions or our feelings seem more identical than we had imagined at the start...

In the Alter Ego exhibition, it is the turn of the figurative painter Marie Montiel to take an interest in the anatomical and psychological similarities between these beings. It offers a pause allowing the observation of our particularities and our singularities pursuing artistic, humanistic and philosophical objectives. The artist, thus wishes to induce a thought and a vision that is more egalitarian and more respectful of our two worlds.

Montiel lived part of her childhood in a medieval dungeon in France. This historic place marked her imagination. There she developed her interest in the human condition and in the contemplation of our society. Her pictorial technique is an amalgam of skills acquired during her fine art studies both in Montreal and in Europe. Oil is her favorite medium and her figurative style is nourished by the observation of our contemporaneity.

Opening reception June 5th, 2022 at 2 pm