Maude Arsenault has been a photographer for more then 20 years in addition to being the mother of three children, including a fourteen-year-old teenage girl. She lives and works in Montreal, where she was born, after having spent time living in France, Australia and New York City. In 2013, she founded the photographic online art gallery ThePrintAtelier.com, where she is the curator and director. Over the last years, she has also completed a B.A in Art History at University of Montréal and is now starting an MFA in visual arts in the Fall of 2019. This last March, she was one of the three guest curators at Art Souterrain 2019, one of Canada’s largest public contemporary art festivals, where she curated the photo selection of an international group of 8 artists on the theme ” True or False”. In March 2019, she attended the Chico Review, in Montana. The works on which she is investing her practice look at the current social condition of female identity and intimacy, a state that compels us to question the foundations to which young women today refer in the way it is formed and shaped.
Intimate Encounters
Through my work I question myself on the places of creation of feminine identity and how individuals connect to their inner self and to others, physically and emotionally. The bedroom being a pivotal space to relate to intimacy, I am interested in capturing the essence of those solo or duo encounters. I also wonder how the feminine gender, historically objectified in our societies, like a canvas, can emancipate inside or outside the domestic, aesthetic and physical roles. Starting from the idea that women are traditionally perceived as “body” and “place” of procreation, I seek to define where we stand when facing this heritage at a pivotal time when women’s emancipation is fronting all the forums.
To view more of Maude Arsenault’s work please visit her website.