About Face

ABOUT FACE

Mixed-media portraits by Montreal artist Tina Cartier depict strong, defiant women

BY JULIE GEDEON

TINA CARTIER’S PORTRAITS OF WOMEN reflect the seductive boldness of defying traditional norms. “I want to affirm strong women possessing loads of character and redefining what it is to be female,” says Cartier, a Montrealarea mixed-media artist.

Cartier’s solo exhibition, titled The Theory of “She,” opened at Galerie le 1040 in Montreal’s Plateau-Mont-Royal neighbourhood this past spring. More recently, the artist participated in the Mtl en Arts 2018 festival, and won the coup de coeur (public choice award). Her works are also featured on ARTBOMB, the Canadian subscriber-based daily online art auction.

Tina Cartier’s beloved grandmother, along with her personal love of boxing, inspired “She’s simply a badass fighting another badass” (48 by 72 inches). The canvas aims to uncover the fighting spirit of women in an age when they were pressured to behave like ladies. King Kong and Godzilla remind us that male monsters belong to a past era while the faint words “Fight Like A Girl” across the top of the canvas convey a rosier future.

Each portrait is brought to life through vivid colours and three-dimensional elements. “I use costume jewelry, spikes, beading, feathers and other things to give each portrait texture and depth,” Cartier says. “I also feature aspects of the culture that informed them.” A lifelong artist, Cartier studied art at l’Université du Québec à Montréal and spent a subsequent year studying fine arts at Concordia University. “I’ve been doing the strong female portraits for about a year,” she says. “They’re my way of saying: it’s my time now as an artist. See me. I’m here, with a bang.”

Many of her subjects appear to be famous women but are rarely so. “I take the photographs of regular models or my girlfriends or even Barbie dolls and show how adding specific fashion elements transform them into Marilyn Monroe, Janice Joplin or Blondie,” Cartier says. “At the same time, I’m showing how each of these icons dating all the way back to Marie Antoinette have advanced the evolution of women.”

Viewers assume that “She’s the wild, the free, the beautiful” is Cartier’s tribute to Mexican artist Frida Kahlo de Rivera, but the resemblance is at most a subconscious manifestation. “I just wanted a strong Latin American woman whose power shows through the artificial flowers in her hair and the exotic birds that I stitched with sequins on her shoulders,” Cartier says. “And I guess Frida emerged.” The adorned epaulets imply how each generation of women in some way lifts the next.

Always informed by street art, Cartier’s pieces incorporate spray-paint graffiti and other urban elements that are part of the mainstream art scene. In one piece, street posters used as papier-mâché create a three-dimensional Asian gown. Cartier, who adores martial arts, wanted to convey that delicate women can still be street-savvy.

“She came, she saw, she loved” is a modern interpretation of Marie Antoinette that emphasizes that women can be all floral and fine lace and yet strong of character. The real 3D lenses and media images are to remind today’s feminine queen that any prescribed look for women is an illusion and they should dress as they please.

Her clients tend to be people in their thirties and forties. “I touch on their youth by featuring a Black Sabbath hoodie, bejeweled epaulets from the punk era, and other aspects of the 1980s,” she says.

Music from the 1980s figures prominently in a piece titled “She was a waitress in a cocktail bar when she saw you,” a work that was sold quickly. Cartier has us singing The Human League’s Don’t You Want Me, Baby, with the song’s lyrics in neon lights as part of the work. The Blondie lookalike’s garb is made of black-and-white photocopies of ’80s jackets along with recycled studs from the same era. The tape cassettes and boombox background give a nod to the lingering influence of the decade’s music in encouraging women to break with past stereotypes.

Cartier’s edgy images always portray women pushing aside societal boundaries, whether they’re stepping out of the supposedly idyllic 1950s into a boxing ring or into a sequined disco jacket and sunglasses, inspired by celebrity icons. Her subjects ooze attitude with their “I’m not budging” stance and typically pink or ruby pout.

“She knows nothing of borders and cares nothing for rules” (48 by 48 inches) features a punk rock queen with aspiked crown and furred and feathered epaulets adorned with pearls and necklaces. The message “I suppose itwill make sense someday” suggests there’s no reason for her to explain herself to anyone – not even to herself.

The work titled “She knows nothing of borders and cares nothing for rules,” for example, reflects a young woman who reigns over her own life. Her power derives from punk rock culture. “She’s a trashy queen, rather than a princess,” Cartier says. “Someone who knows her own mind and does what she wants.”

A Barbie doll in the work titled “She’s having breakfast at Tiffany’s” underscores the plastic public nature of the early 1960s female icons. Marilyn Monroe’s dominance over Audrey Hepburn also emphasizes the idea that blondes indeed had more fun or at least supposed power and influence.

Cartier is currently working on The Theory of “She” Part II, which will pay tribute to Amelia Earhart, Coco Chanel and other notable women. The exhibit will be held at Galerie 1040 in June, 2019. Her work can be viewed on her website: www.tinacartier.com. •

Tina Cartier www.tinacartier.com 438-887-2410