Pierre St-Jacques “36 Steps on a Curved Road”

Station Independent Projects

[Image: Video still from 36 Steps on a Curved Road, by Pierre St-Jacques. Courtesy of the artist @ Station Independent Projects, NYC]

This event has ended.

St-Jacques’ new work, 36 Steps on a Curved Road, continues his exploration of
narrative and delves more deeply in the psychology of the characters he depicts.
The video featured in this exhibition follows the life of a couple over a forty year
period. It follows their evolution and their mutual influence on each other. They
share their successes and failures with each other, and nudge each other to
change and evolve.

But perhaps the most intimate avenue that the video plumbs is how each character is
in a life long discussion with his or herself. With a collapse of a time line the young person converses with his or her own older self. The older self with the benefit of hindsight judges the path taken and the decisions that were made in a different light when young.
The older self can even elect to remember things differently as to how they actually happened, and in doing so, in effect, erase the young version of him or herself that
actually was. In this tug-o-war of acceptance and understanding steps are taken
towards perceived happiness.

Accompanying the video is a series of drawings whose subject matter has similar psychology that the film aims to portray but in a more poetic and immediate way.

Pierre St-Jacques has shown his work at Artist’s Space in New York, at Gallerie
Joella in Finland, and more recently at the DiVA and Scope Art Fairs in NYC,
the DC Art Fair in Washington, DC, the Directors Lounge in Berlin, the Bronx
Museum of Art in New York and Real Artways in Connecticut. With Slideluck
Potshow he has exhibited his work nationally at the Wexner Center for
Contemporary Art in Columbus Ohio and internationally at venues in London,
Copenhagen, Milan, and many others. St-Jacques has attended a media art
residency at Titanik Gallery in Turku, Finland.

St-Jacques has been part of group shows at the Turku City Art Museum, Finland,
BRIC Gallery, Brooklyn, Metaphor Contemporary Art, Brooklyn, Index Art Center,
New Jersey, Klaus Center for the Arts, California, ISE Cultural Foundation, NYC,
Minnesota Center for the Book Arts, Minneapolis, Tiffen Gallery, Ohio,
Chashama Gallery, NYC, Collective Gallery, NYC, Hous Projects, NYC,
Diverse Works, Texas, Red Saw Gallery, New Jersey and Peer Gallery, NYC.

St-Jacques has had his work featured in twice in New York Times and in
Hyperallergic, Posit Online, New City, Chelsea Now, Art News, Heart as
Arena Blog, Bronx Times, Tribeca Tribune and Projector.

His work has been featured in the experimental film sections of the International
Montreal New Cinema and New Video Festival, in Quebec, Canada, The Berlin International Directors Lounge in Germany and the Nickel Film Festival in Newfoundland, Canada.

He traveled to Beijing in 2009 to shoot Traveling between Spring and Fall and
he worked concurrently on Yes and Make Believe, two video projects
completed in 2011. In 2009 St-Jacques shot A Hidden Place for Fragile
Things in Newfoundland, Canada.

He recently finished a series of five shorts entitled A Gathering of Shifts and a
six-channel video installation entitled The Explorations of Dead Ends both of
which where featured as solo shows at Station Independent Projects.

36 Steps on a Curved Road was shot in 2015 in Nova Scotia, Canada with
actors from Nova Scotia and New York City and the music in the film is
composed by Fred Kennedy a native of Nova Scotia, Canada.

St-Jacques has a B.F.A. from The Rhode Island School of Design where he was
awarded a year abroad in Rome, Italy on the RISD EHP Program. St-Jacques
has an M.F.A. from Ohio State University, a Diplome d’Etudes Collegiales from
College Dawson in Quebec, Canada and studied at ACCAD at Ohio State
University.