Suzanne Bessette

Systems Of Control:Compared To Water
Nanaimo Art Gallery, 2003

Two person show, Suzanne Bessette & Laura Hargrave, Curator: Robin Field, 2003

Recent art works by Suzanne Bessette and Laura Hargrave bring to mind environmental responsibilities and confront us with issues related to the “new urbanism” and rural economic development. Cultural and political systems of control play against the natural environment in the works in this exhibition.

Bessette’s works are acrylic and oil paintings of dynamic stylized and abstracted forms revolving around a theme of water.  In this exhibition we see her explorations of iconic images (boat forms and fallen leaves) that are compared to water. This series of work is powerful and richly coloured, representing an on-going exploration of sensation, emotion and relationship of the image/object to the strong but yielding nature of water. In some of her pieces we can find the visual structure of a bar code as a grid within the work. In this way, Bessette contrasts the fluidity and flexibility of water with the more rigid forms of systems, codes and commodification of our natural environment.