PLATO
UPCOMING EXHIBITION
Maude Corriveau, Where Light Settles (Rideau horizontal I), 2026, oil on linen, 36 x 48 in.
Maude Corriveau
Between Folds
Opens Thusday, September 3, 6-8PM
PLATO is excited to announce the opening reception of Maude Corriveau’s solo exhibition, Between Folds, at PLATO’s ground floor gallery on Thursday, September 3, from 6:00–8:00 PM.
Between Folds explores the unstable threshold where images emerge through the encounter of gravity, light, and material. Rather than presenting textiles as static objects, these paintings investigate the conditions through which an image appears, hesitates, and comes into focus. They occupy the space between physical matter and optical fiction, where perception remains suspended in continual negotiation.
The curtain functions as the exhibition’s central device. Historically associated with concealment and illusion, it is approached here less as a symbolic motif than as an optical and phenomenological system. Its folds are not composed but produced through physical forces—tension, weight, handling, and time. They register the traces of action rather than simply describing an object.
This body of work draws on the writing on fallen drapery by the French philosopher and art historian Georges Didi-Huberman, according to which the fold survives the body that once animated it. Here, the textile no longer stands in for the figure but acquires its own autonomy. The fold persists after gesture has disappeared, preserving the memory of an action while remaining open to new perceptual possibilities. What is represented is not the body itself, but the forces that acted upon matter.
The paintings emerge through an iterative dialogue between physical staging, photography, generative AI, and oil painting. Rather than functioning as isolated media, each stage folds into the next: physical studio actions inform algorithmic processing, which in turn dictate new decisions on the canvas. It is precisely within this space—between folds of different image-making techniques—that painting acts as a site of translation, slowing the velocity of synthetic images and transforming their luminous surfaces into tactile presence through successive layers of oil and exposed linen.
Across the exhibition, the works move through subtle variations in density, light, and spatial focus. Some emphasize the sculptural precision and physical weight of manipulated fabric; others dissolve into expansive atmospheric fields where form vibrates within restrained chromatic tones. Gravity gives form while light continually reshapes its clarity.
At the base of many compositions, horizontal reflective planes—suggesting either a mirrored floor or a still liquid surface—extend the textiles into ambiguous interior spaces. Acting simultaneously as ground and reflection, these surfaces destabilize spatial orientation, producing images that oscillate between architectural structure and immaterial illusion.
In Between Folds, painting delays the interval before certainty arrives instead of confirming the authority of photography or artificial intelligence. Ultimately, it constructs the conditions under which images emerge and transform—allowing perception itself to remain fluid and unresolved.
Maude Corriveau (b. 1986, Montréal, Canada) transfigures disposable and synthetic materials through a practice of pastel drawing and oil painting informed by an interest in the effect of light on matter. Her hyperrealist practice explores perceptual thresholds and reflects a post-screen condition, translating visual effects associated with digital interfaces into slow, analog gestures.
In her approach to still life, Corriveau intervenes digitally to intensify certain optical phenomena such as shadows or refracted light. Her complex yet minimalist compositions metamorphose the pictorial space into an ethereal world that plays with the line between the illusion and the real. Fabric folds, curtains, glass panes, mirrors, and windows are a constant presence in Corriveau's oeuvre, suggesting an expanded space beyond the flat surface and creating a flow between the interior and the exterior. The recurring motif of the curtain points to the dangerous allure of the screen serving as a faux window to the world, while underscoring technology’s ability to transport us to another dimension of feeling and existence.
In the artist’s own words: “I consciously use pastel and iridescent colors as a critical strategy. What is often perceived as purely feminine becomes a way to question hierarchies in art history, the status of the pastel medium, and the politics of softness. Craft, for me, is a form of resistance to digital flattening, inviting a contemplative, sensory, and haptic experience. Draped fabrics become almost immaterial surfaces, producing effects that evoke both classical painting and the visual language of digital screens.”
Maude Corriveau (b. 1986) is a Canadian artist based in Montreal. She obtained her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Visual and Media Arts from the University of Quebec in Montreal. Corriveau’s work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Contemporary Art of Laurentides, Saint-Jérôme, Museum of Fine Arts in Mont-Saint-Hilaire, PLATO, Galerie Nicolas Robert, Galerie Cache Studio, Orama, and many others. She has received grants from the Conseil des arts du Québec (2024), the Vermont Studio Center Fellowship (2023), the Canada Council for the Arts (2021) and the Yvonne L. Bombardier Graduate Scholarship (2019). In 2024, she participated in the NARS Foundation residency in Brooklyn, NY. Corriveau’s work has been featured in numerous publications such as Le Canada Francais, Vie des Arts, Hypebeast, Le Devoir, Le Nouvelliste, Le Culte, La Presse and many more. The artist's work adorn museum, private and corporate collections, including those of Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec, BMO Bank of Montreal, Desjardins and Ubisoft, among others.