All 14 drawings are of pastel, Conté, charcoal, graphite on Maidstone paper, 63.5 x 96.5 cm.
In French, the words “mère” and “mer” not only sound the same, they are both feminine. The project De mère en mer (From Mother to Sea) is due to a turn of events that began in 2010 when I visited my mother and acquired a plastic mesh mask, a crude cast of my mother’s head and shoulders, that was used for her radiation treatments. A few days later, a stay in a house perched on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River awakened my desire to learn from the sea, the distant lands, and the lost memories of French, Belgian, Acadian, Indigenous, Quebecois, Franco-Ontarian, and other female ancestors. I listened to early songs and read about Acadian life, and later, travelled on cruise ship along the St. Lawrence River and Seaway.
Some of these drawings are found juxtaposed to the installation De mère en mer: Lost in Translation, and printed in the pages of the artist’s book de mère / de mer.