MEAN MAN WALKING ALL OVER THOSE WHO ARE WEAKER THAN HIM, 2012.
Mixed media on paper, 16 x 23 inches.

GABRIELLE DE MONTMOLLIN
Stephen Harper Hates Me

APRIL 24 - MAY 18, 2013

Listed as one of Top 9 Spring Shows in Canadian Art Magazine
A 'must-see' show in NOW Magazine

Gabrielle de Montmollin interviewed on Artsync TV

In  a  reversal of the 1960’s slogan, “The Personal Is Political” Gabrielle  de   Montmollin suggests that politics is personal in her new series Stephen Harper Hates Me.    Blending news photographs with images borrowed from her drawings and   staged photographs de Montmollin shows how Harper’s inimical attitude   towards artists and others he despises has shaped the art she makes and   the life she lives. This series of mixed media works on paper is funny,   blunt and provocative.

He haunts her artist’s studio and cavorts in menacing and satiric ways with the dolls that were once de Montmollin’s dominant artistic focus. “I wanted people to see Harper’s contempt for the ordinary person as well as for the artist,” de Montmollin says. “And I wanted to use humour as a sharp tool to make my point.”

(from the essay "The Fantastic, Fearless and Furious World of Gabrielle de Montmolllin," written by Susan Swan to accompany the exhibition)

Born in Toronto, Gabrielle de Montmollin began her career in television and film but moved on to still   photography once she discovered it was the medium best suited to her   unique vision and independent nature. For many years she worked   exclusively with black and white film photographing throwaway plastic   toys and dolls arranged in constructed, fantasy settings. Recently she  has been working with mixed media blending painting, drawing and montage   elements with digital prints. In addition, over the past three years,   her focus has shifted from the recording of personal imaginings to   finding visual expression of her feelings about social justice issues   and politics.

Susan Swan is a Toronto writer and activist who has written about Stephen Harper’s government and the arts. Her newest novel is The Western Light, published by Cormorant Books in 2012.

www.gabrielledemontmollin.com