HEAR ME CRY was exhibited at the Niagara Artists Centre (NAC) in 2021. This is a transcript of an interview between Linda Steer, Associate Professor, History of Art and Visual Culture at Brock University, and the artist, Gabrielle de Montmollin, which took place at the artist’s studio in October 2021.

Hear Me Cry

I make photographs rather than take them. Throughout my career I have been drawn to photographing still lifes. It is a genre which I can stretch beyond its traditional limits to a space where it is possible to make visual the ideas I have in my mind.

Hear Me Cry presents pleasing arrangements of beautiful objects set against backgrounds of provocative and/or disturbing images sourced from my daily electronic newsfeed. I want people to look at these photographs and see that if they have beauty in their lives they are lucky and privileged but they should never forget about what is happening in the background.

In the midst of an almost overwhelming swell of negative information, I am highlighting specific horrors so as not to allow them to be forgotten as they’re replaced by more unsettling images in the unending ‘disposable information’ that we experience everyday.