Derrière les portes

Julie René de Cotret

Julie René de Cotret is a French Canadian independent artist-curator, born in Montreal. She obtained her BFA from NSCAD, and her Masters in curatorial studies from the University of Toronto. She has exhibited and curated internationally: Canada, US, Sweden, Greece, UK, Switzerland, Korea, Germany. René de Cotret is co-founder of the artist residency program at the School of Environmental Science, University of Guelph, Ontario. She has been an active board member in Artist-Run Centres for the last 13 years and is currently chair of the board at GNO, Sudbury. René de Cotret has received numerous grants and has recently been awarded a Chalmers fellowship.

Emilio Portal

Emilio Portal is an interdisciplinary artist, craftsman, designer and musician. While working at McEwen School of Architecture, he works on several projects collaborating with local organisms in Sudbury where he lives. He has exhibited throughout Canada. In 2011, Emilio and Elyse Portal started making art together under the moniker eeportal. Their performances and installations address historic and contemporary environmental and spiritual issues.

Ron Loranger

Originally from Kapuskasing, Ron Loranger is a queer Franco-Ontarian visual artist based in Toronto. His practice, usually entitled “Blobettes”, involves watercolour and India ink on Arches paper, but also takes the shape of painted installations in urban settings. Loranger is very much involved in the world of artist-run centres: indeed, he has been part of several boards and committees, such as BRAVO, Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario and Le Labo. His professional experience includes exhibits in private galleries in Toronto, New York City and Berlin, and in public galleries, such as Kapuskasing’s Galerie Paquin, the Sudbury Art Gallery and the Glendon York University Gallery, as well with the GNO with Blobettes in 2015. He also took part in the Biennial of Textile Art in San Jose (Costa Rica) and the FAAS. His works are part of private collections throughout North America and Europe.

Anyse Ducharme

Anyse Ducharme is a Franco-Ontarian media artist from Northeastern Ontario (Sturgeon Falls). Her artistic practice is engaged with the circulation of digital imagery and the malleability of data. Her work has been exhibited in Sudbury during FAAS 6, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Middlesbrough, Boston and New York. Ducharme holds an MFA from the University of British Columbia, a BFA from the University of Ottawa, and a college diploma in 3D Animation from La Cité collégiale. She currently works as the Artistic Programmer at Knot Project Space — SAW Video, and sits on the board of directors of both La Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario and the Media Art Network of Ontario.

Lise Beaudry

Lise Beaudry is a Franco-Ontarian artist originally from the rural region of Témiscamingue on the Ontario-Québec border. As an artist, she seeks ways to do and think with photography as a platform for experimentation. She holds a BFA from Concordia University (1997) and an MFA from York University (2006). Her photographic and video work has been presented across Canada and internationally, including Les Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles (1997), Grunt Gallery, Vancouver (1999) A Space, Toronto (2000), Biennial of Young Artists, Romania (2004), Ice Follies, North Bay (2006), AXENÉO7, Gatineau (2010), Art Gallery of Hamilton (2011) and Art Gallery of Mississauga (2012), Pierre François Ouellette Art Contemporain, Montréal (2017) and Koffler Gallery, Toronto (2018). In 2012, Beaudry won the BMW Exhibition Prize at the Contact Photography Festival. Her works are in private collections including TD Bank Art Collection. Now residing in Toronto, she is a professor in the Art and Art History program at the University of Toronto in Mississauga.

Laurent Vaillancourt

Laurent Vaillancourt participated in the cultural awakening movement of French Ontario in the early 1970s and remains intimately linked to this community. Hearst, in northern Ontario, remains his home base. The artist has been and continues to be fascinated by the steel cable, a true metaphor for his deep desire to link together, through this symbolic material, the people of the small communities with which he identifies. Steel cable is rarely used as a raw material. Its flexibility, its curves, its elegance and its torsional strength are the attributes that Vaillancourt explores by manipulating it. Found objects are also increasingly elements that form part of its basic materials. For the artist, the object carries meaning. The object is an artefact. It is used to tell stories.