Lyse Lemieux uses rubber as medium of choice
By Steven Howell, Contributing Writer
ThePressRepublican.com

ST. LAMBERT, Quebec - Artist Lyse Lemieux is quite comfortable in the skin she's in. "Skinslips," her new exhibition at the Marsil Museum, offers a dozen and a half works that include ghostly latex silhouettes -- rubber apparitions that are pinned to the wall -- and crisp, high-resolution clothing scans so real you can reach out and touch them.
"Skinslips" is a term that Lemieux coined herself to mean "a layer of latex poured onto a section of clothing or garment. Sections of the dress are layered with a skin of latex then scanned in a variety of positions."
"The Skinslip is the observer's imprint," she said. "The gaze left behind. The underbelly of the story."
Lemieux offers a lesson in Latex 101.
"Natural latex is what comes out of the rubber tree," she said. "It's a technical term, but latex, rubber, it's all the same."
Lemieux says her works claim similar characteristics to an elastic rubber band. "Initially, it's flexible," she said. "But the more exposed to oxygen and light, the older the rubber is and the darker it gets."
Lemieux, a native of Ottawa who now calls Vancouver home, says she needed to research rubber as her material of choice.
"People buy latex at industrial places for industrial purposes," she said. "I buy the latex for my art, but that's not its intended use."
Lemieux also traveled to New York's Guggenheim Museum, where she examined the work of artist Eva Hesse.
"My work's not anything like that, but Hesse was the first to use rubber."
Lemieux says that Hesse's work is now kept in vaults, away from light to prevent it from further disintegration. In the back of her mind, Lemieux knows that her work will probably meet a similar fate.
"I haven't spent too much time thinking that this may disappear. It's just what I do and part of my expression. I don't think Eva realized her work would disintegrate," she said. "But there are so many things on this planet, that the idea of making something temporary is appealing. I like the idea of not taking up a lot of room." One large installation includes some 20 pieces of latex in various stages of discoloration and decay. Each component resembles cut clothing patterns in pieces like sleeves, skirts or blouses. Another example, with three layers of latex placed one on top of the other, connotes a wedding dress or ball gown. The works are fixed flat against the wall with pins. As flexible as the pieces appear, they are all surprisingly hard to the touch.
The high-resolution scans combine clothing with latex. To create this effect Lemieux uses a bed scanner, a large eight-foot long by four-foot wide long scanning device that's often used to make laminate floors. But don't call her scans photographs. "I call them sculptures," Lemieux said. "There's a process of laying the piece of clothing down on a table, adding latex, adding layers, and then scanning. It's a lot different than a photograph."
One example is a black and white girl's school uniform with a label stating "orphan" stitched into the collar.
"Why bother giving that stereotype to a 6-year-old-girl," Lemieux asks.
After two decades as a producer for CBC Radio in Vancouver, Lemieux has decided to follow her artistic muse full time.
"I was becoming disjointed with who I was and what I was supposed to do," she said. "But now, my main motivation is my work."
She looks at life and her art in a similar fashion.
"Life has a way of knocking at the door. But don't try to control it all the time. Let it go, but in a conscious way. And make it as honest as possible."
"Skinslips" continues until Feb. 5.
Marsil Museum holds a light-hearted lecture called "Our Love-Hate Relationships with Clothes" about clothing, body and identity on Jan. 28. The guest speaker is Prof.
Sandra Webber of Concordia University.
Marsil Museum is at 349 Riverside St. in St. Lambert. Admission costs $3. The museum is closed Mondays. Call (450) 923-6601 or visit www.museemarsil.org . Take 15 North to 132/20 Est. Then take exit 6. The museum is at the first intersection.

The Press Republican
January 2006
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