{"id":10789,"date":"2025-10-09T04:32:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T08:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fondationguidomolinari.org\/en\/?p=10789"},"modified":"2026-01-29T11:36:01","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T16:36:01","slug":"i-am-here-irene-f-whittome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fondationguidomolinari.org\/en\/i-am-here-irene-f-whittome\/","title":{"rendered":"I am here. Irene F. Whittome<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Curator: Marie J. Jean<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The title of this exhibition, like a performative statement, asserts itself as an authoritative proclamation. It simultaneously designates a presence, a place, and a moment: the here-and-now where Irene F. Whittome finds herself. But the series of images that also bears this title, showing the artist\u2019s diminutive silhouette in the center of a former quarry now overgrown in lush vegetation, complicates this assertion. \u201cI am here\u201d thus becomes a paradoxical declaration, in which the artist is both anchored and almost erased in the immensity of the landscape. Since 2014, Whittome has permanently settled in this abandoned quarry in Ogden, leaving Montreal, its bustling atmosphere, and its cultural milieu. She retreated into this underworld to live closer to nature and in solitude, essential conditions for her freedom and the renewal of her artistic practice. This aspiration drives Whittome\u2019s exhibition: to be here, in nature, fully occupying the present moment. It is both poetic stance and radical gesture \u2014 a way of inhabiting the world by observing it, translating it, sculpting it, gently, consistently.<\/p>\n\n\n