You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she’s not deadly. She’s beautiful and she’s laughing. - Hèlene Cixous, The Laugh of the Medusa
Medusiac is an exhibition of new paintings by the Brussels-based Canadian artist Sarah Cale (b. 1977, Montreal) at 190 St Helens Avenue.
Since 2017, Sarah Cale's materially diverse approach to painting has focused on the female form as subject, often depicted in moments of physical and psychological transformation. Her 2021 show Human Maths at n0dine (Brussels) presented mutable figures constructed with jute knot-tying techniques combined with oil paint. Her 2020 exhibition Mittelschmerz at CRG presented figures "in the middle of something," caught in a tension between painted bodily narratives and the awkward materiality apparent on the painting's surface.
Since 2017, Sarah Cale's materially diverse approach to painting has focused on the female form as subject, often depicted in moments of physical and psychological transformation. Her 2021 show Human Maths at n0dine (Brussels) presented mutable figures constructed with jute knot-tying techniques combined with oil paint. Her 2020 exhibition Mittelschmerz at CRG presented figures "in the middle of something," caught in a tension between painted bodily narratives and the awkward materiality apparent on the painting's surface.
Medusiac is comprised of portraits and figures in varied psychological states where heads and bodies are often depicted from multiple, contradictory perspectives. The artist aims to project a visual ruse: forms hover back and forth between a meditative stasis while also breaking apart or unravelling into the background. Each figure is grappling with both its physical/material self and its psychological self, depicted with subtly dark or peculiar undertones. Cale has said, "these portraits aim to show a conflict between a projected, idealized state versus the reality of one's actual feelings and emotions."
