Blablabla de nanas | Joannie Boulais

Blablabla de nanas is a multidisciplinary art clustering, including sculpture, painting and poetry. Joannie Boulais combines elements from distinct artistic practices and things foreign to art in order to suggest associations which will destabilize the viewer. Text based and tactile, her works tackle issues of identity and gender. They question the limits and the representations of feminine and masculine, the boundaries between "beauty" and junk, norms and their transgressions. As one would write a poem, Joannie Boulais combines both heterogeneous materials and words in unusual ways. She lets them accumulate, juxtapose and contaminate each other, often with a peculiar sense of humour. Visually, she uses materials to express ambiguity. Her artworks looks unfinished yet complete; it is attractive and ugly at the same time.



Joannie Boulais is a young artist who graduated from a BFA in Visual and Media Arts at UQAM in 2009. From 2008 to 2010, she participated in several group exhibitions in Quebec, France and Japan. As a lucky twist, 2011 came with her first solo exhibition at Galerie d'art de Matane, her first artist residency at the artist run center Clark, a group exhibition at Maison de la culture Maisonneuve, and today, her second solo exhibition at Les Territoires. As she herself says: "It's going well and I'm happy about it!"

Image:
Joannie Boulais, La grosse lettrée d'installation, detail, gesso, acrylic, pencil, ink and books extracts (name description books, Harlequin and detective novels (Mary Higgins Clark), Janette Bertrand's and Julie Couillard's autobiographies, Jeanne d'Arc's and Angelina Jolie's biographies, TV Hebdos, Châtelaine Magazines, dictionaries, cartoons, song lyrics booklets) on map, Cartoville journey book and cardboard, variable size (approximately 240 cm x 800 cm x 350 cm), 2010