Richard Boulet’s timely exhibition, Art Thou The Accuser Of Thy Brethren Or Art Thou The Inspiration of Their Heart, and accompanying publication offer new perspectives on intersectional mental illness/health aesthetics. Boulet introduces fine craft textile art as part of an inclusive mental wellness program for community building while extending the discourse around fine craft materiality via his exploration of more diverse elements including medical terminology, design strategies, performative sound and concrete poetry. By providing an artworld context for schizophrenia and its display of dysfunction in the public mind, Boulet suggests there is as much consideration to be paid to recovery and text-and-materially-based art as to stories of pre-diagnosis hardships.
Boulet’s visit to Corner Brook is a unique opportunity to bring public attention to alternative approaches to fine craft making, blending narratives of lived experience with mental challenges with various craft techniques (from applique to cross-stitch).
On January 16th, Boulet will be in conversation with exhibition curator Wayne Baerwaldt in the gallery. They will discuss the inspiration for key works in the show with a particular emphasis on the active exchange of fine craft and design techniques as they relate to concrete poetry, drawing, sculpture and installation. A Q&A with the audience will follow the conversation.
Richard Boulet has two undergraduate degrees completed back-to-back from the University of Manitoba. The first is a Bachelor of Environmental Studies in Architecture followed by a BFA. Richard later received his MFA in Drawing and Intermedia at the University of Alberta and for a limited period of time he found a home for participatory programming, volunteering and gainful employment at the CMHA–Edmonton.
Wayne Baerwaldt is an independent visual arts curator and producer based in western Canada. His best-known curatorial projects trace performative elements in artmaking with an emphasis on unstable, disputed identities and the language of their construction and presentation in public and private spaces. Recent projects and publications include If I May Digress: Richard Boulet and Collaborators and Meeting for Teas: On the Road to Decolonization. He is the guest editor for Issue #62 of PUBLIC, The Gender-Diverse Lens, and conducts ongoing research in social justice issues and questions of representation as a Michele Sereda Artist in Residence for Socially Engaged Practice at the University of Regina. He is a board member of the Hnatyshyn Foundation, Ottawa and on the Advisory Committee of participant, inc., in New York City.