Dominique Pétrin: Big, Bright and Bold

  Dominique Pétrin is trying to completely overwhelm you. Her art projects grow increasingly immersive and ambitious as she takes her bright, poppy tropical aesthetic and serialized motifs to ever-grander scales. The artist is currently at work on a mega-installation, Palazzo II, an installation project supported by Dare Dare and the Quartier de Spectacles as […]


 

Dominique Pétrin is trying to completely overwhelm you. Her art projects grow increasingly immersive and ambitious as she takes her bright, poppy tropical aesthetic and serialized motifs to ever-grander scales.

The artist is currently at work on a mega-installation, Palazzo II, an installation project supported by Dare Dare and the Quartier de Spectacles as part of Journées de la culture, in which she wraps the entire Katacombes building in printed material.

Going big is increasingly part of her work, she says, because “it it affects you on a physical level so it’s impossible to think, it’s so overwhelming.” Constructing large projects like Palazzo II or her ongoing show at Arprim, GALA, means “playing with optical effects in order to create installations that are wall to ceiling, that really affect the perception to the point of destabilizing.”

For the past year and a half, Pétrin has been building toward “excess and decadence and excessive information and colour.” She is inspired by Greco-Roman frescoes and the desire to bring a modern edge to “fantasized representations of something you would like to be.”

Entering GALA, one is immediately hit by a wave of tropical colour and patterns. Almost painfully bright palm trees, parrots, jewelry and emoticons pop out for everywhere, and it is a challenge to keep a straight face and a challenge to get your eyes to adjust, let alone stay in one place.

The show screams extravagance, and even Pétrin herself admits that “it’s really excessive.” Printed on over 3000 sheets of paper, the work was improvisationally installed in situ, the printed material cut and pasted directly onto the walls and floor.

While she has always been actively creating art pieces, many know Pétrin from her days as Pony P, singer for cultishly popular electro-weirdo outfit Les Georges Leningrad. While she claims she has no intention of going back to music and performance, she still sees a direct link between her role in Les Georges and her art.

“Performance is still really present,” she says of her work. “It’s so much labour, and I want to do it in public. In the process of doing it I really relate still to music, the sound.”

Like Les Georges, Pétrin’s approach still focuses on creating an engulfing sensory environment, pushing people to create their own space within all the noise.

“My installation at Arprim, you feel like you are on a frequency that is unusual. In order to stay in the room and feel good, you kind of have to calm down and accept what is going on,” she explains. “I was with someone and we compared it to being in a noise show where it sounds really loud and crazy, but if you adapt your ears to it, there are so many layers and dimensions. You can adjust to it and really appreciate it in a way. To me, this side of music is really present.” ■

Gala remains up until Oct. 20, Arprim (372, rue Sainte-Catherine W., Belgo, #426). Palazzo II is installed at Katacombes (1635 St-Laurent).

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