This new series of sculptures by Geneviève Dagenais tells the story of the fluidity of the body in motion, evoking the encounter of its limbs, with each other and with space.

Using a video of a performative bodily exploration she herself had conducted and recorded, Dagenais first studied her movements, paying particular attention to the contact between her hands and arms, their relationship, and the negative spaces generated by their interactions. Having done this, she extracted a series of still images from the video, capturing moments of entanglement in which her intertwined limbs suggested new forms. Like cast shadows, these flat images were then transformed through an ingenious process: after using them to lay the groundwork for fabric patterns, the artist turned them into textile molds, a kind of garment now ready to receive a pour of clay. In this way, she succeeded in creating forms that are part organic, part human, static echoes of suspended movements, frozen in time.

Like flesh marked by the scars that have forged it over time, the sculptures born from Dagenais's process retain the imprints of the seams and folds of the fabric. Rather than seeking to conceal them, the artist highlights these witnesses to the transformation of matter, honoring the memory of the body, the legacy of the trials that have shaped it.

By combining meticulous textile work to create the mold with the intensity of high-temperature firing to solidify a malleable material—clay—the artist transforms the fleeting nature of bodily movement into a tangible, immutable object. Dagenais's works skillfully explore the intersections of opposing concepts, from rigidity to flexibility, and from permanence to the ephemeral.

Gabrielle Bouchard, Commissioner