White walls, white floor, white ceiling & colorful vivid large scale paintings of human faces… My reaction? Love at 1st sight! Imagine a place where everything is completely white, everything except the numerous paintings hanging on the walls. As you walk in this “white kingdom”, the only sources of distraction possible may be the painting hanging on the wall next to it or maybe your own thoughts. Differently said, the paintings exposed on AKA Gallery’s walls stand out so much that one may find his or her attention span or concentration level drastically climb. Now that you know what triggered my curiosity & motivated me to visit the gallery, allow me to share with you my thoughts about Corno’s unique artistic expression.

Picture of one of the paintings; AKA Gallery-Old Port, Montreal

Colors
Something interesting about Corno’s artwork is her use of fluorescent colors. For example, the orange in the picture shown above is a vivid & fluorescent orange. Her choice of colors is fairly intense. It seems as if there was light being emitted from the canvases. Fluorescence… But aside from fluorescence, the size of her canvases alone has its language. Could the choice of colors & size be interpreted as representing high or large intensity? strength? Energy? Wildness? &/or Passion?

Corno’s Women
Beautiful, sensual & with makeup on… Most of Corno’s art depicts women with such attributes-characteristics. Females’ faces, similar to the image above & below, appear as if they are expressing desire, more specifically, sexual desire. The position of their faces, the look in their eyes, their slightly opened mouths… Those are examples which may lead one to perceive beauty, sensuality & sexuality symbolized through the facial reactions of those attractive ladies.

Here is another of her beautiful paintings. Although it doesn’t seem like it, the yellow background is a loud & flashy fluorescent yellow! I choose to include this painting here since it was exposed on the white walls yesterday. So let’s see… If you compare this painting to the blond face on the orange background above, you will certainly notice many similarities. Attractive, erotic, sensual women, with lots of makeup on their faces, mouth slightly opened, head slightly tilted upwards. It’s as if both women were in an altered state of consciousness. You might not be surprised if I said that they appear as if they are having sex &/or possibly reaching an orgasm. Delicious desire! Hmm… This sounds familiar. This reminds me of Ghada Amer’s art gallery: For those who have not read my previous post about her art exhibition: here is the link :Title-Art Exhibition by Ghada Amer- http://liveuphoria.org/2012/02/24/ghadaamer/

“After closely observing her phenomenal images, it became clearer to me that sexual pleasure is a context through which she seeks to spread the empowerment and rights of women.”-VE (liveuphoria.org). Quoting myself from my previous post (Art Exhibition by Ghada Amer). Corno’s “art & desire” gallery reminds me of Ghada Amer’s “pleasure & love” exhibition. What they seem to both have in common is feminism & sexual pleasure. Whereas Amer paints erotic naked women in “pornographic” or masturbating positions/scenes, Corno focuses mostly on sexual pleasure as expressed through the face & leaves the bodies to our imagination. Note that although Corno also paints men & female bodies, this post emphasizes strictly on her feminism face collection.

Peace & love
Peace & love symbols are portrayed on every single one of her paintings, a beautiful trademark. What a nice touch filled with meaning. I was & still am artistically & semantically inclined to those 2 symbols. Freedom of sexual expression! Women’s rights to peace & love. Women’s freedom or peace to express their sexuality without any judgement from society.

How I interpret Corno’s art in few words: Women, feminism, intensity, power, desire, freedom of sexual expression, beauty, peace & love.

From painting to beauty marketing;
When Joanne Corneau, the artist Corno’s name, teamed up with Lancome, I learned that she had recently teamed up with Lancome for the launch of a new makeup collection.

“Corno and I wanted to integrate the same kind of vibrancy in the looks as there is in her paintings, but in a very practical manner, in order to create beauty looks that would translate well into everyday life,” explained Lora Spiga, Lancome’s official makeup artist. – News Canada. To a certain extent, this means that Lancome beieved that Corno’s paintings conveyed the values it constantly seeks to communicate to & with: women, feminism, intensity, power, desire, freedom of sexual expression, beauty, peace & love.

Joanne Corneau – a talented & impressive artist!
For more about Corno: http://cornostudio.com

Feel free to express thoughts, comments & questions in the comment section below.
picture source (2nd image): Corno-Google Images