Tammi Campbell and Marc Courtemanche: Fool Me Twice

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The artists in Fool Me Twice use the technique of trompe l'eoil, "fooling the eye" to create the illusion of an exhibition that is not quite ready to be seen. By undermining visual assumptions, they ask pertinent philosophical questions about what it means to state the Duchampian declarative: "This is art."

Tammi Campbell's works on paper resemble partially-completed hard-line abstractions, marked with painter's and masking tape. Each piece of peeling tape, however, is convincingly fabricated with acrylic paint -- the viewer is looking at a completed painting. Campbell's work underscores the decision-making processes that determine when a work in progress is ascribed the higher status of "art." A comparable dialogue is present in Marc Courtemanche's sculptural works, where objects found in the artist's studio -- a chair, a ladder, finishing nails, woodworking tools, and pieces of fruit, perhaps meant to be snacks or subjects in still-life painting -- are meticulously crafted from carved clay or cast from layers of poured paint. Without a framing device claiming these facsimiles as art, they would slip quietly into the everyday. In the gallery, Campbell and Courtemanche reveal the contingency of these categorical designations and caution us to not always believe what we see.

Tammi Campbell lives in Saskatoon. She has exhibited nationally and has taken part in residencies at The Banff Centre, the Emma Lake Artists' Workshop, the International Symposium of Contemporary Art of Baie-Saint-Paul, and at Plug In ICA. Campbell has exhibited nationally, and her work can be found in public and private collections, including the Musee d'Art Contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul, the Saskatchewan Arts Board, the Mendel Art Gallery, the University of Regina, and the University of Saskatchewan. Campbell also operates Make Work Projects, an independent storefront studio and project space. She is represented by Galerie Hugues Charbonneau in Montreal.

Marc Courtemanche is an interdisciplinary artist living in L'Ange-Gardien, near Gatineau, Quebec. He has exhibited throughout Canada and his work was included in the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art's acclaimed exhibition, Breaking Boundaries in 2010-11. Courtemanche's work is in collections including the Saskatchewan Arts Board, the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, the Mendel Art Gallery, the MacKenzie Art Gallery, the City of Regina, the University of Regina, and Cambrian College of Applied Arts and Technology. Courtemanche is represented by the David Kaye Gallery in Toronto, Slate Gallery in Regina and Darrell Bell Gallery in Saskatoon.

Marc Courtemanche, Fool Me Twice (Installation View), 2014. Photo by Trevor Hopkin.