Hear Me Cry
Gabrielle de Montmollin
Special presentation in the Dennis Tourbin Members Gallery
Beginning Saturday 19 June 2021
I make photographs rather than take them. Throughout my career I have been drawn to photographing still lifes. It is a genre which I can stretch beyond its traditional limits to a space where it is possible to make visual the ideas I have in my mind.
Hear Me Cry presents arrangements of beautiful objects set against backgrounds of provocative and/or disturbing images sourced from my daily electronic newsfeed. I want people to look at these photographs and see that if they have beauty in their lives they are lucky and privileged but they should never forget about what is happening in the background.
In the midst of an almost overwhelming swell of negative information, I am highlighting specific horrors so as not to allow them to be forgotten as they’re replaced by more unsettling images in the unending ‘disposable information’ that we experience everyday.
About the Artist
Gabrielle de Montmollin was born in Toronto. After studying political science at Carleton University in Ottawa she worked in television at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and pursued an interest in independent film-making. She moved on to still photography once she discovered it was the medium best suited to her unique vision and independent nature. For many years she worked exclusively with black and white film photographing throwaway plastic toys and dolls arranged in constructed, fantasy settings.
Montmollin has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Canada, the United States, Belgium, Italy, France and The Netherlands. She exhibited in Contact, Toronto’s Month of Photography Festival three times (2003, 2007, 2016). She was a member of The Red Head Gallery, an artists’ collective in Toronto from 2012 to 2016. She now lives in Welland, Ontario with artist Tony Calzetta who is the other half of their art collaboration known as ART IS HELL.
Still Life with Spring Produce, 2019, 22×33 inches, Archival Lambda print, Edition of 4
Banner Image:
Still Life with Birds, 2020, 22×33 inches, Archival Lambda print, Edition of 4
