Tribute to Sylvie Bélanger, 1951-2020

10/14/2020

Sylvie Bélanger, 1951-2020

Sylvie passed away on October 8, 2020. As many of us know, Sylvie was (it feels strange to write about her in the past tense) a respected artist and a committed educator. But for me, she was a friend. I’ve known her for 20 years, so my memory might be less than accurate but this is how I remember meeting her for the first time at her exhibition at YYZ in Toronto. I went to the gallery to introduce myself as I had recently found out that I had been accepted into the MFA program at the University of Windsor where she was teaching. I knew her work, spent time reading about her installations but had never seen her work in person. I am a shy person. So instead of talking to anyone, I stayed in a darkened room with her work Le regard du silence. The work was so quiet. I felt I may disturb the image if I were to walk around. I sat and watched the slow turning page in the projected image as the face in the video slowly dissolves and disappears. I was so moved by her work, I decided to be courageous and ask her to be on my committee. Many years later she told me how she made the work to look so natural, which I won’t reveal because there was a little trick to it. She was always ingenious when it came to solving problems.

Working with Sylvie could be painstakingly intense, but this is how I learned that there is no problem that can’t be solved. When I was helping her with Fragments d’une histoire, we went around collecting the “perfect” fallen red maple leaves in the park. This was only the beginning of her pursuing to make the video with leaves falling as natural as possible. It was a contradicted effort to mimic nature through recording leaves falling in a studio. But in the end, she found the way to make it work. Similar to the steady slowness in Le regard du silence, the leaves fell in her video with ease, paired with the slow stride of Didier walking into the forest on the other side of the work. The calming pace in her work is effortless; at the same time, it is perfectly measured.

We hung out a lot at her Toronto studio. Many times, I would stay late into the evening because our conversations often went on for an indefinite time. Rick always made wonderful meals. It was a given that there would be an extra plate for me at their dinner table. Over the years, she taught me many things. One of them is her love for animals, particularly dogs. She was always with her dogs, all the way to the end. She taught her classes with her dog next to her. We often joked about how Dismal (her Poodle) was our TA. I think my love of dogs solidified because of her, and now they are and will always be in my life. Sylvie was undeniably generous with her time, sharing of knowledge and ideas; she was honestly critical; she was overwhelmingly filled with empathy; she was passionate, especially towards art. She wanted to talk about art and her new project to the very end.

So, I was wrong. She was never just a friend. She was and always will be an artist I admire and a mentor I love and respect. I am honoured that she was a part of my life. I think the only way to end this tribute is with her own words. Thank you, Sylvie and I will miss you. We all will.

“Art is social because it resuscitates again and again, fears, desires, hopes, anxieties, beliefs and the struggle of being at once in relationships to each other and in a world that has its own relationships.

"L’art est social parce qu’il ressuscite constamment: craintes, désires, inquiétudes, convictions ainsi que la lutte du fait d’être en relation avec les autres et en même temps d’être dans un monde qui a ses propres relations”. Sylvie Bélanger, 1985

June Pak, October 13, 2020, Toronto

Sylvie Bélanger's work is represented by Birch Contemporary You can read her full obituary here.

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Louise Noguchi link

10/17/2020 11:21:25 am

I will always remember Sylvie as a dynamic person with a deep passion for life. As a professor, she never needed a lesson plan, instead, she would dip into her deep well of knowledge in art and theory for each class. Students would be enthralled by what they learnt and appreciative of her keen insights into their artwork. Many of our critiques lasted well into the night, where no student wanted to leave for fear of missing out on discussions that were led by Sylvie. I will dearly miss Sylvie as a teacher, artist and most of all as a dear friend.

Adriane Little link

10/23/2020 11:20:55 pm

I know exactly where I was standing at the very moment I met Sylvie for the first time. It was in my MFA studio at SUNY Buffalo on the first floor near the darkrooms while she was on the interview to join the faculty. I am remember clearly not being able to talk fast enough to explain what I was working on, what I wanted to do next, and there was such amazing energy in studio that day. She was drawing all of the words out of me in a way I didn't understand until many years later. And mostly from that day and almost every time she would look at me over the next 17 years and tell me that I talk too fast.

So many hours with her outside of the CFA at UB, in her studio in Toronto, and then in Montreal. I am grateful for all of that time and conversation. I am crushed that I have not been able to cross the border since March and only since to see her on FaceTime. I am so grateful for having known Sylvie these last 17 years. So many words and so many years. She was brilliant, kind, talented, genuinely interesting, and generous. Like so many we were first students and then friends. I did my best over the years to be a great friend in return. I am a better person for having known her. There are few few people in our lives that you can say for sure and can see the exact moment that they helped you to change the course of your life for the better. Rest well my dear friend.

Megan Morgan link

10/24/2020 10:40:28 am

Sylvie was my mentor for nearly 3 years when I was in grad school ten years ago. I remember fondly and vividly, meeting her at her home and studio and being welcomed even by her husband and her dogs. She opened her home, her mind and her heart to me. In fact, although she was my art teacher, she also helped me to start to get over a lifelong fear of dogs. She showed never ending patience, brilliance and a commitment to a life of art and connection. She was tough on me in the ways I needed to step up as both an artist, and as a growing person in a harsh world. I will never, ever forget her, or her kindness and friendship. Sylvie was a rare gem and we are all so lucky to have met and worked with her over the years. Thank you Rich for sharing her with so many of us.

Gerald Mead

10/26/2020 12:57:19 am

I was fortunate to have had to opportunity to know Sylvie and have the benefit of her perspective on my work when I was an MFA candidate at the University at Buffalo from 2006-2008. She was forthright and insightful and I had the greatest respect for her and how she interacted with the undergraduate students and my fellow MFA candidates. As I became increasingly familiar with her own work, my admiration and respect for her grew and I was pleased in later years to have acquired examples of her photography and video work that I was able to include in exhibitions that I curated from my collection. Her installation/exhibition at Big Orbit Gallery in 2007 as part of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery's "Beyond/In Western New York Exhibition was a tour de force. She was a gifted artist and a mentor to many - her loss is a loss that will be felt profoundly...

Sara Barry

10/27/2020 10:09:54 pm

Sylvie. You spread so much energy, brilliance, and ingenuity throughout this life that you can never be gone from this realm. You had so many students who always needed to know your opinion of their art before they could even begin to understand what they were thinking themselves. You were able to cut through our naïveté and really see what we were really trying to say. So many needed you that some of us at UB called it the “cult of Sylvie”— in a good way, of course.

You were so many eons beyond me in understanding science and life when I was your student, but you were and are a role model I will always be able to look to. I still think about something you told me your partner said about women: how the most revealing thing a woman can do is to take her glasses off. And I think that is how a person in a relationship should be admired.

I was so mad at you when you took a sabbatical during the semester of my senior thesis! But I came back years later and bugged you. I thought you would understand my decision to apply to law school, and you did. I told you I was still going make art. You told me I wouldn’t have the time. You were right. I haven’t so far.

But in the loss and suffering I’ve experienced this year, including the transition of you to some place I don’t understand, I know that the only thing that can make it better is to make art, to try to create something to get closer to the meaning of things in the way only doing that can.
And I have my teachers to thank for that ability.
I have you to thank.
The photo printer is set up- maybe whisper insights to me that will take me months to understand?

To those who’s fundamental nature is changing with the loss of the person they centered it on, there are no words to make this more bearable. But please know, without question, that Sylvie is truly so influential to each and every student she had. We love her.

Namaste, my teacher.

Arzu Ozkal

11/21/2020 06:08:05 pm

“You must kill your master” once Sylvie advised me, noticing my unhealthy adoration and submission to my thesis mentors, including herself. I wouldn’t be the person who I am today without the lengthily conversations I had with her during my last year at University at Buffalo. We would drink a glass of red wine, and converse mostly about Barthes (of course), sometimes Nietzsche...

Me and my partner (at the time) named our house plant after Sylvie when we learned she was sick. Every time the plant bloomed with flowers, we would tell each other that the Sylvie was doing well.

I will cherish the memories forever.
Arzu