Annie Briard

Country: Canada
"What is reality, and is the imagined actually separate from the physical world?" At the crux of Annie's practice is the way our eyes perceive the physical world and how we interpret this information to create a meaningful understanding of the physical realm.

Within an interdisciplinary approach encompassing video, interactive media, installation, painting and sculpture, Annie's studio-based investigations explore the chasm between somatic and subliminal realities.

Through the appropriation of the fable and the use of wonderment as a trope, uncanny video moments, animation installations and surreal images emerge. Shuffled narratives decontextualize archetypal characters and actions, leaving the viewer in the middle of a story taking place in a defamiliarized environment. By exploring visual mental phenomena and semiotics of representation, the work questions the interpretation of what is perceived. Through occasional experiments in both low-fi and digital interactivity as well as immersive installation, the work takes shape as unsettling perceptual experiences.

Annie Briard is a Canadian interdisciplinary artist holding a BFA from Concordia University (2008), and currently undertaking an MFA in Media Arts at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver.

Since 2008 she has exhibited across Canada and internationally. Her works have been featured at Art Mûr gallery, Articule, Studio XX, Joyce Yahouda Gallery, HTMlles media arts biennale and the Art Souterrain Festival in Montreal; the NFB mediatheque (Toronto, Canada), the White Rabbit Arts Festival, (Bass River, Nova Scotia), the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre (Beijing, China), eMerge Media Space (Townsville, Australia) and the Swiss Architecture Museum (Basel, Switzerland), amongst others.

Her work was featured in a two year, 10-city tour of China for the Canadian Cameras at Work showcase in 2009-2011. In 2011, Joyce Yahouda Gallery presented “The Space in Between”, a solo show of her interdisciplinary work. Briard is currently working on an interactive animation installation during a residency at the Banff Center for a solo exhibition at G++ Gallery in Victoria, BC in 2012.

Annie is also a board member for Studio XX artist-run center and Contraste Agence Culturelle, and is represented by Joyce Yahouda Gallery in Montreal.