The debut solo show by Gibsons-based artist Jude Pelletier simultaneously offers an exaltation of imagination and a manifestation of neurodivergence. Two years ago, Pelletier received a midlife diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
“There’s a real community in the neurodivergent world,” Pelletier said, standing in Joe’s Gallery of the Gibsons Public Art Gallery where Threads of Thought: A Mindful Chaos opened earlier this month. “You find a lot of late-diagnosis people have been sort of masked into this millenium-beige area. And all of a sudden, now that it’s a lot more talked about, people are starting to embrace the colour and bring it back in.”
The gallery is dominated by a tapestry (Threads of Thought) depicting the fleshy labyrinth of a human brain rendered in yarn and thread. Two wooly eyeballs dangle from the occipital lobe. When Pelletier set out to create the work, she augmented a long succession of skills developed over a stunningly eclectic career.
In high school, she took a deep dive into portraiture — followed by a season devoted to automotive painting. Her image-making on bodywork was followed by studies in computer graphics, including binding and digital printing. Last October, while preparing for the exhibition, she taught herself to crochet. Putting all her skills together, she is developing signature crocheted bags that bear her graphic designs.
“As long as it all fits within my artistic world, it should work itself out,” Pelletier said. “There are so many languages [of art], but learning all the languages allows me to think of an idea in my head and then materialize it, whether it’s woodwork or fabric or paint or sewing or bookbinding.”
The room is divided by the brain tapestry into contrasting colour harmonies. On one side, works like U.F.Fruit.Os dazzle with luminescent hues and otherworldly subjects (tiny flying saucers hover around a suprêmed banana). In Counting Fish, Pelletier uses electric ochre to create a surrealist scene with acrylics: a feline slumbers under a school of bug-eyed goldfish hovering above its head. On the opposite wall, cooler tones prevail. A bighorn sheep smiles amiably at passing bees in Meet My Buddy, its wool reflecting subtle shades of sunrise.
Pelletier’s study of contrasts is not limited to colour. Tiny canvases — with frames she constructed by hand — appear alongside full-size studies. Only a couple of centimetres square, works like Bumble Boo Blue and Bumble Wahoo allow their diminutive subjects to dominate the frame. (Jeweller’s loupes are provided for close inspection.)
“I like playing with the scale,” said Pelletier. “I think that the little pieces give you a glimpse into a world where you’re big, on the outside looking into somebody else’s world. The bigger pieces are more a part of your reality — you almost feel like you could grab the banana and have a bite out of it. Whereas in the little ones it’s more of an outside observer look.”
The choices she makes for her wide-ranging (and often tongue-in-cheek) bestiary — ranging from coy squirrels to frogs who dream of flight — is derived from an affinity for the creatures themselves. Several porcine portraits are inspired by the sign of the Chinese zodiac she shares with her son and daughter. Her daughter has a fondness for hammerhead sharks (one makes an appearance in Got Your Back Bra!, evoking an underwater friendship between the ungainly mammal and a tiny clownfish). Pelletier also scatters her works with charismatic extraterrestrials (“of course they would have personality and names and dreams,” she said).
The exhibition coincides purposefully with Mental Health Awareness Month, and reflects Pelletier’s drive to find comfort in cacophony. For others whose perspective is influenced by ADHD, she recommends a full embrace of instinct: “Follow your interests 100 per cent. My interests weren’t the same as everybody else’s, but every time that my brain fired up I got excited and I learned. They do end up working together and take you where you need to go.”
Threads of Thought: A Mindful Chaos continues at the Gibsons Public Art Gallery until May 25.
