Rosamunde Bordo

Vancouver-based artist Rosamunde Bordo explores correspondence, subjectivity, fiction, magic, the border between imagination and reality, and the role of art in the creation of new truths.

Bordo used the residency at Est-Nord-Est to continue her project The Denise File, in preparation for an exhibition titled Magic Show (Western Front, Vancouver). The discovery of a series of postcards addressed to an enigmatic woman named Denise was the basis of the project on which she was working in the role of detective.

By attributing an imaginary dimension to a real person, Bordo is weaving a visual narrative evoking Denise’s presence. It is a presence embodied through objects gathered, created, and shaped in response to one of the found postcards. The resulting artworks are fragments imbued with mystery and magic. They act as letters, establishing a correspondence between Bordo and Denise, but also between viewers and the objects, in relation to various aspects of the creative process. The more unreal the furtive figure of Denise is, the more exponentially tangible and present she seems, paradoxically, to become.  

At Est-Nord-Est, Bordo worked in the woodworking workshop, where she sculpted objects that embodied Denise’s elusive presence. Lathing, shaping, and staining were techniques that she explored patiently and curiously. Each gesture was an investigation, and she let the material reveal what it had to teach her. Her approach was free, playful, open; she let herself be guided by creativity rather than the reverse. The material, active in the process, directed her toward the object, and this object in turn oriented her toward a function and a meaning. She favoured a slow, patient creative process, with special attention paid to details.

The delicate wooden objects that Bordo created were like pieces of frescos that she then tried to assemble, like a puzzle, into the image of the narrative that she wished to both construct and decode. Some of the pieces were fastened to stones collected on the shore near Saint-Jean-Port-Joli. Through this almost-mystical process, Bordeau seemed to maintain an inexhaustible, supernatural, and passionate correspondence.