ISABELLE GAUVREAU

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​My primary medium consists of drawings on Japanese paper. The materials used are charcoal, pastel chalk, pencil, Chinese ink of various colours, gold leaves, a collage of fine paper and lace and, finally, monotypes (freehand stamps). Beginning with drawings, a more direct and raw medium, I construct my works around the image of women’s bodies; however, I wanted to go beyond illustration. I chose to add other mediums such as ink and collages.

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My main thematic is the woman’s body and all that touches on femininity. The body represents, for me, humanity. Each position of the body expresses certain emotions. As such, I become the choreographer. I have chosen to create work around the image of women’s bodies because I can easily associate; it is a subject that I know. I selected an intimist approach. I am inspired by my life and body experiences, by my fears, my perceptions and my preoccupations. For women, our life experiences are never far from our bodies: adolescence, sexuality, intimacy, sickness and maternity. In my work, the woman is not uniquely the muse; she is humane and communicates those feelings most profound and true. It is time to enrich the image of the woman, to provide her with her own unique voice—an objective I would like to contribute to as an artist.  
 

To put simply and honestly, I explore the difficulty of being a woman. I want to create a context to talk about the body. The process is direct as the body passes from the personal to the collective: wars, women’s social issues, self-perception, sensitivity, human compassion, marginality, bodily treatments, etc… I believe that we have distanced ourselves from the veritable image of the body: physical changes, weight, scars, wrinkles…
 

I was influenced by certain artists, all whom have one thing in common: their personal approach. Their work becomes dear to them, a means to exteriorize or heal. For Louise Bourgeois, her whole life can be seem in her body of work, such as her anecdotal stories related to her mother. Frida Khalo expresses her physical, moral and intellectual pain through paintings. Betty Goodwin drew people from her daily life on Mylar paper, directly connected to her affective life.  As a spectator and as an artist, I would like my own work to touch others. It must make me live its expressed emotions.