Statement

My practice relies on archival research and firsthand observation. I spend equal amounts of time looking at online collections and wandering through back alleys, searching for a strange piece of architecture or a hidden garden.

I am fascinated by the 'in-between' – that which defies immediate identification. Working with found images collected over a period of months or years, I am rarely done with an image, but instead choose to translate it through different mediums and projects. An image of a badly-tattooed crown of thorns becomes a miniature bronze, or a steel sculpture. When I look for an image to work with, I am primarily seeking metamorphic or communicative potential.

The objects I make are points of access to knowledge and imagining. I make work by removing material, forcing the viewer to flip between negative and positive space. I often disguise my materials to disrupt an immediate reading of the work. Moments where the medium might be obvious – the adhesive on insulation foam or the clean surface of steel – are camouflaged with gradient colours, or motifs that distort the underlying form. Interior and exterior cannot be unentangled.

I use grittiness; the melted, blasted, brittle and sponge-like to draw the viewer in and heighten the works sensory and affective qualities. The time I spend with the object is visible in the accumulation of marks and scars embedded in the material, they give the object its presence in time and space.

Bio

(b. 1991, Edmonton, Canada) Margot Klingender holds a MFA from Concordia University (2021). She presented a solo exhibition at Galerie Projet Pangée in 2019 before participating in two international art fairs: Material Art Fair in Mexico City (2019), and Art Toronto (2019) in Toronto, Ontario. She has completed several residencies, including a partnership between the Slade Research Institute and the Camden Arts Centre in London, England, and the Banff Centre for the Arts in Banff, Alberta. Her work has been included in various group exhibitions including Prometheus Projects (Montréal, CA), Art Pop at Studio Rialto (Montréal, CA), Maison Modèle at Centre Clark (Montréal, CA), Maureen III at the Darling Foundry (Montréal, CA) and the 22e RIMAV at Galerie UQO (Gatineau, CA). She is currently working on a solo exhibition that will open at Shell Projects in Toronto, Ontario (2021). She is the recipient of the Dale and Nick Tedeschi Fellowship and the Lillian Vineberg Graduate Student Award. Her work can be found in various private collections throughout North and South America.

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