Mathieu Valade

In his sculpture practice, Mathieu Valade explores the contradictory relations between common graphic shapes and the ideas that they evoke when they are moved from their usual context and repurposed. His hybrid sculptural objects appropriate the visual codes of elements of simple representation (typography, logos, pictograms, geometric shapes) to reveal a potential for unexpected interpretations via associations among signs. Integrated into, even camouflaged within, the landscape, his works derive their meaning from the context of intervention and draw viewers’ attention to the function of the places that they occupy. Valade (born in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield in 1979) received his BFA from Université du Québec à Montréal in 2003 and his MFA from Université Laval in 2005. In addition to his dedicated pursuit of his art practice, he is a professor in the Module des arts at Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, a founding member of the Pique-Nique collective, and was chair of the board of Bang Centre (Chicoutimi) from 2013 to 2015. His works have been shown at events such as EXMURO (Quebec City, 2011), Art souterrain (Montreal, 2009), Manif d’art 4 (Quebec City, 2008) and C’est arrive près de chez vous at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (Quebec City, 2008). In 2015, he presented the solo exhibitions La forme des choses at Galerie RDV (Nantes, France) and L’art c’est du vent at Galerie Duplex 100 m2 (Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina). He is represented by Galerie 3 (Quebec City). He lives and works in Chicoutimi.