Artist Statement
My practice relies on autofiction, the merging of autobiography and fiction, as a vehicle for artistic expression. This auto fictional process consists of observing my life, extracting content from it, and staging it through artistic creations. In a similar way, I am inspired by the feminist moto the personal is political; and believe that by showcasing my subjectivity I bring forth considerations that can be meaningful for others.
I work primarily in live performance and performance for the camera. (However, I have started painting again, after a twenty year hiatus!) In addition to my university education in the visual arts (B.F.A., M.F.A and PhD.), trainings in clown and neo-buffoon have fostered the humorous, vulnerable and satirical aspects of my work. As well, in-depth readings in psychoanalysis and psychology anchor the explorations of my subjectivity.
The aesthetic of my performance work is vulnerable, intimate, kitsch, grotesque and abject. Food, saturated colours, humorous characters and rituals are center stage. My use of the camera is exploratory and intimate. I am interested in that which is too close, too personal, too disturbing, too grotesque… or too much period. My paintings also explore this aesthetic, but in a more abstracted way.
My current work, Apology Project (letters), reflects on the act of apologizing. I am interested in the remorse and regret that we carry, and how we can find ways to process them. How can apologies act as vehicles for healing and repair? What happens when they are mistuned, misguided or simply miss the mark? An upcoming art installation, as part of the Supercrawl festival in Hamilton, will integrate hand written apology letters and segments of recorded apologies
Through French Kiss, I explored on my francophone identity by re-interpreting the fairy tale The Princess and the Frog to talk about assimilation, resistance, disappearance and the construction and deconstruction of identity. Marie-Minou Miaou Miaou parodied French-Canadian stereotypes by staging a clown in humorous situations. Other projects have entailed marrying a masculine doll to deconstruct romantic rituals (Maria Plus One) and repairing holes with pink icing to parody marketing tactics that offer solutions for inexistent problems (Free Sugar). With Apology Project, I invited people to wear paper bags and apologize while blocking access to a site to critique false apologies and passive-aggressive behaviour.