Parallel Spaces
Jan Fougere and Jennifer Prevost
November 25, 2008 - January 6, 2009
Reception: November 29, 6-8p

Jan Fougere, Untitled, 2008

Jan Fougere
I am currently working with oils in a very abstracted way. Painting for me is a dialog carried out between myself, the canvas and the tools I am working with. I start with a basic idea and composition, however, the marks, lines and colours very often lead me spontaneously in very different directions, as I work through a piece. Balancing light and shadow, quiet spaces verses areas of conflict and energy is ultimately the final goal. The works are indicative of past experiences and memories that emerge onto the surface, often in a very unexpected way.

Jan Fougere is a long-time resident of Kingston, having raised a family and working full time. After taking art courses over the past years, Fougere began her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts at Queen’s University in 2005, and plans to graduate this spring.


Jennifer Prevost, Untitled, oil on paper, 2008

Jennifer Prevost
My work focuses on achieving a visual tension, an active composition, and an ephemeral creation that evolves from my passion to express myself within the discipline of abstract expressionism. I am fascinated by discovering new colour relationships and by allowing the paint to take its natural form. I enjoy the element of surprise that I utilize within my work by permitting the materials to shape the composition; by liberating the medium to develop the work in a spontaneous, intuitive and exciting manner. I created a body of work last year that dealt with portraying luminosity by working on the surface of glass. I am inspired by the way transparency allows light to activate an image, giving it life by injecting its environment into the piece. These various themes have continued within my work on paper, in which I am still intrigued by depicting luminosity.

Jennifer Prevost was born in Ottawa and is currently attending Queens University for Fine Arts. Prior to attending Queens, she had specialized in drawing with ink, pencil crayon, and used representational imagery within her work. During her time here, Prevost has became influenced specifically by her instructors Jan Winton, Dan Oxley, and Carl Heywood, to whom she was inspired to discover a passion for expressing herself within the realm of abstract imagery.