Luanne Martineau: Starshake

Luanne Martineau Bespoken, 2008 detail: assemblage hand-sewn paper and thread 6 x 6 x .4 feet	Luanne Martineau Dangler, 2008 detail: Wool and pin-felted wool 109 x 26 x 28" 277 x 66 x 71cm	Luanne Martineau Dangler, 2008 Wool and pin-felted wool 109 x 26 x 28" 277 x 66 x 71cm
Luanne Martineau Installation view STARSHAKE installation view. Dimensions variable	Luanne Martineau Bespoken, 2008 Bonded fibre paper, graphite, paint and thread 52 x 45 132 x 114 cm

For her second solo exhibition at the gallery Luanne Martineau presents large hand-sewn hexagonal drawing assemblages and new wool sculpture. Building from the idea of STARSHAKE (the craftsman’s term for the inherent star-like splits found in Lime wood), Martineau explores the boundaries between style and social norms. With her signature blending of popular and fine art imagery in which the clean lines of modernist art and the baseness of the body collide, she pushes material seductiveness and overt use of craft techniques to their limits.
Major works by Martineau have recently been acquired for the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and Montreal’s Musée d’art contemporain, where her work will be seen in a solo exhibition in 2010. In spring 2009 Martineau's work will be seen in How Soon is Now at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Luanne Martineau and Shannon Stratton have organized Reskilling, an exhibition that explores notions of the utopian and the banal, the sublime and the abject and the beautiful and the grotesque, through the process of craft. Featuring works by artists such as Liz Magor and Damian Moppett, among others: The Western Front, Vancouver (November 29 to January 10.The www.front.bc.ca

Artists:
Luanne Martineau