#figureworks

Some moments from this year’s Figureworks opening and awards ceremony, in the Byward Market’s St.Brigid’s Centre for the Arts.  For the past seven years, festival founder Hilde Lambrechts and her group of volunteers have been hosting this celebration of visual art of the human form, which has attracted works from artists locally and, this year, from as far away as China and Brazil. In her final days as president of the festival, Hilde shared her thoughts on the festival and Ottawa’s creative community:

Ottawa has a very lively art scene. What is getting attention form the press is the music events throughout the year, and some theatre performances throughout the year, but I find that the visual arts are underestimated. We have plenty of life drawing groups, the National Capital Network of Sculptors, the Ottawa Potter’s Guild, the Water Colour society, the Coloured Pencil Society, workshops from visiting visual artist like Kristy Gordon,  the print makers have an annual exhibition, we have some great photographers in town, we have the Ottawa School of Art at 2 locations where numerous courses are being offered. Ottawa has a lot of talent. Art is never perfect, but the journey towards perfect, is what makes it so engaging. And therefore it is satisfying at every level.

[Figureworks] actually hasn’t surprised me. I knew there would be an audience for it. Also, we are good to artists: we don’t charge commission and they have complete artistic freedom, with a minimal submission fee to pay for costs and the cash awards. 

What I am surprised about, is that it turns out to be difficult to draw the attention of the press. We are a group of volunteers trying to get Ottawa on the map as the figure capital of Canada. One should think that there would be more interest in following us. Maybe that will happen when we need to book hotel rooms for artists coming from far and wide to cash in their awards? Or maybe when we invite a music icon to take care of the music!

Learning how to render the human form at the Ottawa School of Art made me fall in love with the figure. That was in 2007. It was a therapeutic experience for me. It helped me to battle depression and gain self-esteem. I learned to accept my own body and its ‘shortcomings’, to accept the scars of time, and the lines of aging, and become non-judgemental to all the different shapes and forms out there. Beauty can be found anywhere, and that was a very satisfying discovery.

I learned about the various lifedrawing groups in Ottawa and that their sessions were always crowded with people who wanted to improve their technical skill, wanted to become or already were professional artists or just took on lifedrawing as a hobby. This popularity was not reflected at all in the galleries I visited in Ontario and Quebec. So I felt there should be a venue to show the figure, draped or undraped, that was independent of commercial success of galleries, but where the artist could show their work without any artistic limitations.

I see art as a form of communication and the human figure lends itself perfectly for that, as we are all humans. To me, there is nothing more stimulating then knowing I can still improve, that I still have things to say; it keeps me young at heart, and when that eagerness and passion possess you, anything is possible.