Goran Lucic review
Nikola Nikola review
The National Post
October 7, 2010
By Leah Sandals,
Nicole De Brabandere at Alison Smith Gallery
Sometimes art appreciation can simply be a matter of finding your own particular kind of weirdness reflected back to you in an object — and Nicole De Brabandere’s works are definitely my kind of weird.
Her small porcelain sculptures mash up decorative with ugly, industrial with biological, artistic with domestic, and fleshy with futuristic. Lately, these have gotten even weirder (yay!) with the addition of bricks and brick slices.
De Brabandere is inspired by growing up on an Ontario farm, and by the way its harsh outdoor work contrasted with the charming depictions of rural life in her parents’ Franklin Mint figurines. That sense of contradictory meanings being bound together in individual objects definitely comes across in her works and in titles such as Sugared Intestine.
Overall, De Brabandere’s wide-ranging references, absurd mood and crafty practice remind me of better-known artists such as Luanne Martineau. I trust that her own reputation will soon expand accordingly.”
October 7, 2010
By Leah Sandals,
Nicole De Brabandere at Alison Smith Gallery
Sometimes art appreciation can simply be a matter of finding your own particular kind of weirdness reflected back to you in an object — and Nicole De Brabandere’s works are definitely my kind of weird.
Her small porcelain sculptures mash up decorative with ugly, industrial with biological, artistic with domestic, and fleshy with futuristic. Lately, these have gotten even weirder (yay!) with the addition of bricks and brick slices.
De Brabandere is inspired by growing up on an Ontario farm, and by the way its harsh outdoor work contrasted with the charming depictions of rural life in her parents’ Franklin Mint figurines. That sense of contradictory meanings being bound together in individual objects definitely comes across in her works and in titles such as Sugared Intestine.
Overall, De Brabandere’s wide-ranging references, absurd mood and crafty practice remind me of better-known artists such as Luanne Martineau. I trust that her own reputation will soon expand accordingly.”