Emily Carr University of Art + Design
Brigitte Patenaude, born in Ottawa, Ontario in 1991, is a photo-based artist working with elements of sculpture, installation, and performance. She is currently completing her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Fascinated with objects and their ability to reference place and memory, Patenaude creates still lifes that draw on formal qualities of line, colour, and form. By highlighting low-grade and often neglected everyday objects and materials, her still lifes subvert the traditions of its genre. The human presence in Patenaude’s material-driven imagery calls up the tense yet playful interaction between the animate and the inanimate. Conventions are questioned as the objects are stripped of their perfunctory use value. A parallel to human emotion is made. Patenaude sees objects, and the way we choose to interact with them, as a way into larger ideas around purpose, adapting, and belonging.
Brigitte Patenaude, Life in The Manor I, 2017, 13” x 19”, Inkjet Print
