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Z Art Space is delighted to present Paper Doll Games, a solo exhibition of new works by Canadian artist Nicole Crozier. The paintings presented in this exhibition demonstrate the artist’s unique approach to representational painting, in which she appropriates and seeks to build a dialogue with the aesthetic and conceptual qualities of fashion photography. 

 

In Paper Doll Games, Nicole Crozier analyzes the extent to which self-awareness can potentially hinder true representation. According to the artist, figurative painting and fashion photography share a similar nature by constructing pseudo-realities that enable the characters to develop their own personas. Crozier investigates these ideas through self-portraiture, which operates on a strongly personal level as both medium and subject matter, in order to manifest the tangibility of her own character, mediated by self-image and desire. Ultimately, such ‘authentic’ portrayals are doomed, as the figures become intellectually dominated by self-awareness. To what extent can faithful representation coexist with self-consciousness? 

 

Central to the exhibition is House Arrest (2014), a painting in which the artist situates herself in the body of a female model plunged in a surreal setting. To counter the staged reality on canvas, Crozier inserts drips and other abstracted elements, highlighting the internal conflict between self and self-image through painterly applications. Using recurrent creation and deconstruction, the artist casts a visual play on illusion, abstraction and reality. 

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ABOUT

 

Nicole Crozier was born in 1990 in Ottawa, Canada. She received a BFA at the University of Ottawa in 2013. Her main artistic interests reside in the intersections between self, self-image, desire, painting and fashion as means of exploring the constructed, fantastical nature of identity. Her work has previously been shown at venues including Nuit Blanche Ottawa (2013) and St. Brigid’s Centre for the Arts (2012).