In collaboration with the Artasiam art gallery and the Maison de la culture Côte-des-Neiges, Festival Accès Asie is proud to present the exhibition, Fertile Land.
Fertile Land explores the theme of cultural (up)rooting through a vegetal, poetic, and delicate imagination. With the arrival of spring, nature reclaims its rights. It is the beginning of a new cycle where the land becomes fertile again. Photographed or interpreted through painting, plant life is a symbol of the link that unites humans and nature for the artists Bhavya Dixit, Jany Young, and Jenny Chen, and a symbol of the fragile cycle of life and death for photographers Quang Hai Nguyen and JG+Shi.
The opening will take place on May 11 at 5 PM, and the exhibition will be available until June 12.
Yang and Jean-Guillaume, aka JG + Shi, are a Chinese-French photography duo based in Montreal. The work of these two photographers is inspired by their own migratory journey, like the life cycle of flowers. Every day, flowers offer us new possibilities, new colors and smells. Although each photographer has their own meaning, they celebrate life, death, love, and loss at the same time.
Jenny Chen, is a Chinese-Canadian artist, living in Toronto. In her work, she uses symbols to create otherworldly environments while considering themes of existentialism and spirituality. Her paintings represent vegitalized versions of the human body, where vases become bodies, plants symbolize the heart, and vines and extended roots evoke the veins and the nervous system.
Bhavya Dixit is a Montreal artist of Indian origin. Her paintings are influenced by a 2500 year old ancestral technique, the Madhubani, which represents nature and traditional Hindu events. Bhavya pays special tribute to the memory of her grandfather and the many memories she shared with him in her homeland.
Quang Hai Nguyen is a Montreal-based photographer of Vietnamese origin. In his photographic series to: the moon, Quang Hai is interested in nocturnal landscapes and the feeling of loneliness and ephemerality that emerges from them. His photographs reveal the endless cycle of life and death where nature manifests as symbolic figures mimicking the fragile and solitary state of our being.
Jany Young is an artist of Korean origin, living in La Pocatière. Through her paintings, incorporating a traditional aesthetic, the artist reinvents the life and energy of plant life–pure, infinite, and warm. In her work, she looks for plant food microcosms to which we belong. Jany seeks out and observes plants that inspire her in scenes where we humans are also part.
Jean-Guillaume Bastin et Yang Shi | Photographers
Jenny Chen | Visual artist
Bhavya Dixit | Visual artist
Quang Hai Nguyen | Photographer
Jany Young | Visual artist