Gabrielle Hoole
Sofa Negotiations

“I want to live in a world of my own fantastic invention, like pee
wee’s playhouse, but with more feminine energy. I am continuing
in the tradition of female artists who invented their own
mythologies in an attempt to insert a narrative into the collective
unconscious that does not dominate and weaken women but
instead emboldens them to be good, bad, ugly.”

“I was inspired to start working in cardboard a few years ago when
I saw the work of Ushio Shinohara in the Documentary Cutie and
the Boxer. I was encouraged to dive further into cardboard and
really exploit it in the way that he does. Ushio Shinohara has
mastered cardboard and developed great techniques for
manipulating it to produce massive sculptures. I was intrigued by
the idea that in this modern landscape we can still forage and
harvest for materials.“

“In all that I create I like playing with existing mythologies and
adapting them into my own twisted aesthetic, allowing modern
signifiers to clash with old ideology. Character is definitely at the
core of my artistic process, and bringing characters to life from my
imagination is a key driving force in my need to create. For this
photo series I created five individual seated figures and one couch
to be wall mounted. I then proceeded to photograph the figures
seated together in as many combinations as I could. The result is
several different readings of relationships between different
unchanging little sculptural figures. The figures all have distinct
personalities as delineated from there posturing and appearance:
their names are Randy, Brenda, Nina, Zip and Deedee.”

Gabrielle Hoole was born in Winnipeg and grew up in Toronto. She first developed a love for drawing while trying to mimic and invent new cartoon characters like the ones in the comics she loved to read. She went to Rosedale Heights school of the Arts before graduating and pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Art at Concordia in drawing and painting. She collaborated with a team of artists to design and create public murals for community centre 55 in Toronto, and recently participated in a two man show at Jacuzzi club in Montreal that was the result of a four month residency. Gabrielle is currently working on a series of mythological teenage beings.