Biography
Born in 1974 in Sherbrooke, Quebec, she graduated with honors from the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivieres, Canada with a Bachelor of Arts degree. She completed her MA in Fine Arts at the University of Quebec in Chicoutimi. She obtained this degree in cooperation with the Dartington College of Arts in England, where she completed a course in Visual Performance.
The artistic activity of Michelle Rhéaume focuses on the animation of interdisciplinary forms, combining elements of relational art and installations. Her [RE] FLEX] ACTIONS are [RE] ACTION (or a response) to the inflexibility and depth of our interpersonal relationships. She is often inspired by specific phenomena and / or signs of her body. Her [RE] FLEX] ACTION is a test in which she presents ambiguities, errors and ambiguities obscured by the unspoken. Thus, the perceptible limits of suffering can be tested and sensitivity can manifest. She worked as a curator of artistic events and supported action art festivals as a writer. She has presented her work in England, Ireland, Belarus, Poland and Quebec / Canada. As part of the ITERAKCJE festival, it intends to create a common stigma of lyricism and difference. The artist lives and works in Montreal.
Statement
Initially, my work was based on mechanical sculpture, which conducted interactive performances on my behalf. Since 1999, my practice has focused on the subject from the mechanism to the organism, from the body as an object to the subject of the body. In my work, I imagine and see the body as a vehicle of poetry. The body I am talking about is a unique language that speaks of all the experiences from which it was created, as well as the pursuit of the current shape.
This somatic language, which avoids the mimetic and dramatic frame, can realistically turn into a living, multidimensional and universal poetry. This can happen when the presence inherent in the body goes beyond what the audience is seeing or looking at. My sources of inspiration are often specific phenomena and / or signs of my body. Nevertheless, the issue of sculpture remains at the center of my artistic activity in relation to my relationship to the body, to space and to the way I understand contact with Others.
My work examines the blurred areas of the body, examines its edges and shows its "imaginary articulation" that goes beyond the discourse of art conveyed through my body. So the image of possession takes on a shape that is faced by an unknown part of us. Marking a body or place means changing its memory over time, it means acquiring it. By applying this [in] tendency, I create and [w] combine [extensions] similar to the mechanics of the body. That is why the "body subjected to metamorphosis" generates and suggests to me various movements and postures. The extension acts as the principle of marking, it implements the transformation between the inner and outer world, indicating the area of interaction to the Other. In this way, I question the boundaries as well as the limitations down to the limit of the foreign body (the Other).
I call my practical research [RE] FLEX] ACTION, which is [RE] ACTION to the lack of flexibility and depth in our interpersonal relationships.
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