Et si les moulins tournaient sans ne jamais s’arrêter

For a third consecutive year, Loto-Québec has invited artch to the Plural fair, which will take place from Friday, April 11 to Sunday, April 13, 2025, at the Grand Quai of the Port of Montreal.

Et si les moulins tournaient sans ne jamais s’arrêter (What if the windmills kept turning without ever stopping) was co-curated by Manon Pouliot, Head of the Loto-Québec Collection, and Sarah Kitzy Gineau-Delyon, Executive and Artistic Director of artch. The exhibit brings together works by Kelly Davis, Gabor Bata, Alfred Muszynski, Alex Pouliot, Judith Berry, and Mélanie Dumas.

Journal of reflections on the endless imagination
Manon Pouliot and Sarah Kitzy Gineau-Delyon

The mill turns. It bears witness to the perpetual movement of thought and the transformation of matter. Through its repetitive cycle, it creates a whirlwind of air and dust, a spiral of flour, an infinite flow of possibilities.

Sarah, December 15, 2024:

Let’s posit that the human imagination has no known end—that it cannot be exhausted, but instead gives rise to an infinite multiplication of ideas that each create their own imaginary worlds. Each creator can, in this sense, establish their own rules and construct laws within a self-conceived space. Time and space have no boundaries in the vortex imaginarium, allowing artists to envision the irrational and the impossible, unbound by physical or logical constraints.

Let’s say imagination is a pure space, of freedom, where the inconceivable and the fantastic can coexist without obstacle—beyond the laws of what has already been seen. This free space doesn’t have to represent the world as it is perceived. Each person is free to push the impulse endlessly, as our surrealist artist friends have done, blurring the lines between reality and myth.

One may then ask: does the artist create an imaginary world structured by laws, cycles, series, models—and does this world surpass human thought? In what ways can this imaginary realm exist beyond the mind that conceived it—into infinity? All the more so in a work destined to be shown to a public of varied individuals, each capable of forming their own imaginaries. The resonance of the work then extends this initial imaginary world into a shared one, reimagined by those who experience the work.

Manon, December 20, 2024:

We understand that artists draw inspiration from their environments to create: they are driven by their fears about the current world, by suffering, by beauty, by their origins. They borrow symbols, codes, or iconographies from various eras and from what they live and see in daily life. Merged with their imagination, their creations then exist within an infinite and metaphorical universe. This becomes a refuge unique to them, in which they feel well and free of constraint.

This universe is composed of contrasts—opposed and yet attracted to one another—in an immense realm of tangible and intangible possibilities, blending materiality and immateriality, which underpins the core of their artistic approach:

• The seen and the unseen

• The full and the void

• Attraction and repulsion

• Fragility and hardness

• Dream and reality

• Balance and imbalance

The artist creates based on what they wish to transmit to the viewer or observer. They build their imaginary world from a personal sense arising from lived experience (regarding the evolution of humanity, history, science, motherhood, fear of the other, technological advancements, dream construction, etc.), which they share with others. This lived experience places the individual (artist and viewer alike) at the heart of this imaginary space and at the heart of the creative process. The totality of these sensations—material and immaterial, visible and invisible—forms a whole, a succession of endless images, where space-time dissolves and becomes infinite.

The Artists:

Kelly Davis explores the mystical realm of the imaginable, where abundance and infinite expansion reign. Through her abstract paintings, she creates portals into an invisible yet deeply felt reality, offering a space for both personal and collective resonance. Her work is part of a continuous dialogue, activated by the viewer’s engagement and nourished by an intuitive exchange that transcends language.

Gabor Bata draws and paints characters from his imagination, who repeatedly attempt—but fail—to communicate and connect. He creates colorful, voluptuous scenes that captivate attention. He is influenced by his love of cinema, animation, comics, and design.

Alfred Muszynski views his work as a research practice, “a network of ideas above all.” Past and present codes and iconographies intertwine in his pieces. He plays with the real and the mythical in puzzle-like formats. His symbolic references form a network, where each painting finds its place within the system he has constructed.

Alex Pouliot seeks to re-enchant art by exploring the invisible forces that shape the appearance of things and the identity journey of the individual. Often in dialogue with specific places, his work questions the influence of Western cultural supremacy in mass media and its role in constructing and colonizing collective imaginaries.

Judith Berry: “This small painting is one of many attempts to condense the landscape into a surface that appears manipulable. The winding spiral paths suggest a monumental form, like a hill. Yet the painted surface remains opaque, each gesture inscribed directly onto it. The image suggests vast expanses while also appearing like a tangible object or a body part. This piece is part of a decades-long effort to merge the genres of landscape, still life, and portrait. I confront the notion of landscape, our relationship with the environment, and how its transformations affect us.”

Mélanie Dumas explores materiality by engaging with space, fullness, and emptiness, to reveal new geometries. Her work questions the notion of landscape through forms inspired by living and synthetic structures. Between fragility and robustness, stillness and movement, she selects raw materials to expose their properties and temporality. Integrating active systems, she creates sculptures that replicate natural phenomena on a small scale, thus questioning our relationship to the Anthropocene.