Carole BAILLARGEON

Carole Baillargeon is a sculptor who participates in the revival of textile techniques in contemporary art, while evoking humanist, environmental and ecological concerns. The artist recycles denim to create surprising anthropomorphic sculptural works, offering the viewer access to a powerful narrative about the human condition. Complex, vulnerable and impermanent, humans are treated as the main subject in Baillargeon’s clothing sculptures. This orientation develops into a hybrid practice that boldly combines visual arts, set design, creative art crafts and more. This multidisciplinary approach is fully used in the grand project Paysages-Vêtements, realized between 2000 and 2015, where different performing arts were used in collaboration with codesigners and extras to illustrate the four seasons of Quebec. Equally imposing, the project Ainsi… presents real scissors or old tools, covered with fragments of fabric that were then taken by hand. The work embodies the dual role of victim and executioner; it highlights the changing working conditions in a world where automation is growing. Strange, imperfect but beautiful, each assemblage takes the form of a figurine marked by the passage of time and memories. Her body of work, continuously expanding, now counts more than 250 sculptures. As solo or group exhibitions, her artworks have been appreciated by different audiences in Canada and abroad, since 2017.

Over the past three decades, Carole Baillargeon’s art practice achieved recognition in Québec, America and Europe. She has been awarded many prizes and grants throughout her career. Notably, she received the prize Hommage en métiers d’art in 2016, and the prize for the international influence of her art at the Galas des prix Excellence Arts et Culture for the Québec and Chaudière-Appalaches regions. She has been honored with the grand prize of the City of Québec at the biennial show Découverte in 1993. She completed her Ph.D in Study and Practice of Arts at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), a Master Degree in Fine Arts at Concordia University in Montréal and a BA in Scenography for Theater at Concordia University. She also participated in many art residencies in the country and internationally. A first publication on her work was produced in 2020. She lives and works in Deschambault-Grondines.

Learn more about the artist:
La fabrique culturelle: « Carole Baillargeon (Deschambault) »
La fabrique culturelle: « Les paysages vêtements de Carole Baillargeon »