All becoming clear: Port Blandford artist creates portraits from Scotch tape
A new art exhibit at Gallery 59 in Gander, N.L., will have you thinking a little differently about office supplies.
(In)Visible is an exhibit by visual artist Leslie Sasaki — who now lives in Port Blandford — made using Plexiglas, a boxcutter and Scotch brand magic tape.
Sasaki peels out the strips, each layer adding a little more shade, as if it were a pencil. He says it's a way of exploring how people feel invisible in society.
"The portraits are very fugitive or kind of fragile. As you walk through the space, they'll change a bit. They're very light-contingent, and that's sort of like people," he said.
It's an art project that started almost 20 years ago when Sasaki was a professor at Memorial University's Grenfell Campus.
He was experimenting with different materials, eventually making a self-portrait with tape.
That picture has followed him to every office he's occupied since. While in Hamilton, Ont., Sasaki was asked to create an exhibit of tape portraits.
But he wanted it to be much more.
Along with making an image in their likeness, Sasaki sat down to talk with each person.
"Tape attaches, it seals, it's used for labelling, but it also repairs. That got me thinking a little bit about the metaphor of being invisible," said Sasaki.
He says creating the portraits is the easy part for him, and the most enjoyable part of the project was getting to know the people he recreated with tape.
"Everyone has a story. It doesn't have to be the most spectacular, glamorous, sexy story ever, but everybody has a story and the sheer humanity, the everyday humanity of it, makes it amazing."
The exhibit in Gander features eight portraits, some from the original exhibit in Hamilton and some new ones he's created since moving back to Newfoundland.
"I think we all have different moments, where we feel a little overlooked, ignored," he said.
In the decades since he made the first image, Sasaki says, he couldn't have imagined this project would still be going, and coming full circle, back in the province where it all began near one of his favourite art pieces.
"I feel really jazzed that my work is here. And just over to my right is the Ken Lockheed mural, which is an amazing piece of artwork — a Canadian treasure, as far as I'm concerned."
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The drawings in AIDS: You Can't Catch It Holding Hands attest to the artist's ability to share information on a difficult subject with humour and tenderness, in the form of a letter to her children. It focuses on deeply human, loving relationships. The artist was also aware of the importance of representing racialized groups in public spaces, leading her to create the Black Heroes sculpture series. With these sculptures, she pays tribute to athletes Michael Jordan and Tony Gwynn, as well as artists such as Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, and Josephine Baker. The Angel of Temperance can be seen in the giant glass-walled showcase that is the Pierre Lassonde Pavilion's Grand Hall. This golden-winged Nana, over five meters tall, closely resembles the Temperance sculpture in the Tarot Garden. "Very early on, I decided to become a heroine. Who would I be? George Sand? Joan of Arc? Napoleon in a skirt? Whatever I ended up doing, I wanted it to be difficult, exciting, spectacular." – Niki de Saint Phalle, 1999 A self-taught artist, Niki de Saint Phalle was born in 1930 in Neuilly-sur-Seine in a noble family. Although she was born in France, she spent her youth in New York before returning to Europe in 1952 with her first husband, writer Harry Mathews (1930-2017), with whom she had two children and from whom she separated after several years. She first worked as a model and made her debut in the theatre. In 1953, she was hospitalized for depression and began to paint and produce collages. She abandoned the theatre and chose art as a form of life and survival. In 1956, she settled in the Impasse Ronsin, the locale of artists' studios in Paris, where she met sculptor Jean Tinguely, who became her life partner in 1960. Starting in 1961, she was the only woman artist associated with the group of new realists, and she developed her practice in opposition to convention. She produced shooting paintings. For two years, destruction sustained by rage and determination enabled her to reconstruct painting differently. In 1966, the Nanas became the most celebrated portion of her work, including Hon ("she" in Swedish), a monumental Nana. This army of Nanas in numerous shapes and colours is an artistic and feminist assertion, assumed and reasserted, in which we can all recognize ourselves. In 1967, Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely visited Montréal to present Le Paradis fantastique on the terrace of the French pavilion at Expo 67. In 1978, she launched the construction of the Tarot Garden in Garavicchio (Capalbio, Italy), whose monumental sculptures are inspired by the major arcana of the tarot game. She worked for 20 years in this garden of wonders. The park opened in 1998. While her output in the 1960s and 1970s and the couple that she formed with Jean Tinguely, nicknamed the Bonnie and Clyde of art, are well known, it is also important to point out other facets of her work and life, especially her works from the period 1980 to 1990, marked by her social and political commitments, and her tremendous contribution to the artistic freedom of women. In 1980, the Centre Georges-Pompidou devoted a retrospective spanning 30 years of her career, which took stock from another angle of the work of Niki de Saint Phalle and included her on the list of great French women artists. Her works are presented in the foremost museum collections: the Centre Pompidou (Paris); the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris (Paris); the Moderna Museet (Stockholm); Tate Modern (London); the Sprengel Museum Hannover (Hanover); the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, DC); The Museum of Modern Art (New York); the Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain (Nice); the Musée des Arts décoratifs (Paris); and the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), among others. Niki de Saint Phalle died of respiratory failure at the San Diego Hospital on May 21, 2002. DIVE DEEPER WITH AN AUDIO GUIDE Creating, Resisting, Loving: Niki de Saint Phalle in the 1980s and 1990s An audio tour gives visitors the chance to dive even deeper into the incredibly rich world Niki de Saint Phalle created over the last two decades of her career. Some twenty stations introduce key works that highlight everything from her artistic experimentation to her feminist, environmental, and social activism. From the Tarot Garden to the most unexpected mediums, visitors will see how Saint Phalle blurred the lines between art and life, dream and reality, while turning joy into a true strategy of resistance. It's a fascinating exploration of the life of this French-American artist. Bring your headphones! TO LISTEN, click here! NEW! THROUGH A CHILD'S EYES To make the exhibition more inclusive for families, the MNBAQ has thoughtfully prepared special panels along the pathway. They're close to the works and easy to identify and read. In fact, you could even say it's child's play! With playful questions, suggestions for elements to focus on, and open-ended explorations, the panels help families enjoy an interactive, thought-provoking visit. They encourage parents and children to talk about the works, providing opportunities to share opinions and questions. The 12 panels are spread along the entire route and cover the works of Niki de Saint Phalle as an artist, and the themes she explored in her art. We bet that plenty of adults will also be curious enough to read them and follow this new path! MARGIE GILLIS DANCES NIKI DE SAINT PHALLE In conjunction with the exhibition, the Festival Quartiers Danses (FQD) has orchestrated a performance of pieces by the Margie Gillis Dance Foundation that draw inspiration from Niki de Saint Phalle's work. The renowned choreographer and dancer, along with the artists of the Legacy Project, will celebrate freedom of expression as well as women's creative power and profound connection to the world. The performance is being held on Sunday, June 15 at 2 p.m. in the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec Sandra and Alain Bouchard Auditorium. On the program: a recent solo by Margie Gillis, Remembered Premonitions, created in 2024 for the FQD and performed to original music by Niko Friesen. Next, the Legacy Project dancers will perform The Whole Bloomin' Thing, a dance inspired by James Joyce that explores his seminal work Ulysses. A dance celebration you won't want to miss. CREDITS Niki de Saint Phalle – The 1980s and 1990s : Art Unleashed, An exhibition produced by the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec in collaboration with les Abattoirs, Musée – Frac Occitanie Toulouse and with the participation of the Niki Charitable Art Foundation. The exhibition has received financial support from the Gouvernement du Québec and the Ville de Québec under the Entente de développement culturel. MANAGEMENT Jean-Luc MURRAY, Director General, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec Anik DORION-COUPAL, Director of Exhibitions and International Partnerships, MNBAQ CURATORSHIP AND DIDACTIC TEXTS Maude LÉVESQUE, concept adaptation and texts, MNBAQ Annabelle TÉNÈZE, concept and original texts, Les Abattoirs, Musée – Frac Occitanie Toulouse MUSÉE NATIONAL DES BEAUX-ARTS DU QUÉBEC TEAM Loïc LEFEBVRE, Exhibition Designer Philippe LEGRIS, Graphic Design Coordination Claude-Olivier RICHARD, Noémie JUTEAU, Michel PELLETIER, Samuel POULIN, Jean-François ROY, Audiovisual – lighting design, video and technical integration Valérie ALLARD, Florence GARIEPY, Delphine EGESBORG, Anna-Sophie BLOUIN, Danielle BOUTIN, Éva CHATIGNY, Charlotte COUGNAUD, Jacinthe DUBE, Élisabeth GIRARD-DIONNE, Myriam DUFOUR, Agathe LEGENDRE, Claudèle MULLER, Emmanuel SIMARD, Julien ST-GEORGES-TREMBLAY, Rosalie ST-ONGE, Gallery Mediation – content and guided tours EXTERNAL COLLABORATORS Marc-André ROY, Graphic Design Paolo SODI, Anastasiia LAPITKSAIA, Dario FEDELE, Guglielmo BALDINI, Video Production – Tarot Garden PARTNERS AND LENDERS LES ABATTOIRS, MUSÉE – FRAC OCCITANIE TOULOUSE NIKI CHARITABLE ART FOUNDATION LA FONDATION DU JARDIN DES TAROTS SPECIAL THANKS To the Mingei International Museum of San Diego, to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and to all the lenders for their essential contribution to the exhibition. NIKI DE SAINT PHALLE – THE 1980S AND 1990: ART UNLEASHED Pierre Lassonde Pavilion at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec From June 12, 2025 to January 4, 2026 SOURCE Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec
