Biography

A graduate of Concordia University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (2010), Chloé Beaulac specializes in printmaking. While refining this medium over the years, Beaulac has had the opportunity to work with various renowned artists and curators to perfect her techniques, research and creation work. At the same time, her practice has been enriched by her multidisciplinary explorations. Inspired by printmaking, she uses photography, drawing, silkscreening, painting, installation and sculpture to communicate her perception of the world. She received several awards and honors for her creations, such as the Cultural Ambassador Award at the 2019’s Longueuil Gala. The same year, she was also the winner of the Missions photographiques des Laurentides, an award given jointly by Loto-Québec and the Rencontres internationales de la photographie en Gaspésie. Beaulac has presented her work in several public art projects, solo exhibitions, group exhibitions and artist residencies all throughout Quebec, Canada and internationally.

Approach and works on display

Chloé Beaulac explores various places around the world and documents them to fuel her research. Just as an ethnologist, she observes the social and cultural characteristics, history, myths, tales, rituals, as well as the atmosphere that emanates from these places. Photographic documentation, drawings and observation notes then undergo a process of deconstruction-reconstruction, by which she interprets the images and information, gathered in her own way, to amalgamate them into her personal iconography. Her works thus evoke a form of enigma, arcane or mystery. By this process, she tries to formulate a kind of visual and narrative that is universal : simple, evocative and free of interpretation. These visual tales or “supernatures” often take the form of exploded graphic novels or contemporary photo novels.

Lieu saint (2017-2020)

In this series, Chloé targets various places and cultures to cover a multitude of subjects and themes related to theology, traditions and heterogeneous and historical beliefs of various cultural communities. Her work pays a particular attention to mysticism and shamanism, but especially to the place of nature. From these explorations, she constructs photomontages that are declined as a crystallization form of the “moment before the manifestation” – a moment when time freezes and sacralizes space, at the limit of reality, as if a mysterious portal was about to open. These dreamlike works consist in the amalgamation of symbols, related to the imaginary of “sacred places”, in order to create synonymous places embodying a form of natural connection with “beyond”. These photographic constructions of fictional places, like the places of worship from which they are inspired, illustrate this deeply human desire to gather and find oneself at the heart of a well-being, conferred by the feeling of belonging to a “whole”, through personal beliefs embodied in space. Through this contemporary pilgrimage and this imaginary amalgam of fictitious sanctuaries, she deconstructs and reconstructs the common notion of the place of worship.

Works by the artist