Born in Lotbinière, Quebec in 1978, Catherine Plaisance is an interdisciplinary artist whose work is characterized by a focus on the aesthetics of disaster. In the exploration of this subject, she uses a variety of media including photography, video, collage, and drawing. She creates miniature scenes in which the landscape is destroyed by an event that disrupts the natural order of things. These events then take form as they are transcribed through photo and video. Using interdisciplinary means, the representation of these diverse transcriptions suggests the existence of different levels of reality which are regulated by different levels of logic.
Her work has been shown at, among others, the Galerie Sans Nom (Moncton, 2004), the Maison de la culture Mont-Royal (Montreal, 2008), the Galerie Simon Blais (Montreal, 2011), the VU Photo Centre and La Bande Vidéo (Quebec, 2012), Galerie BAC, the Maison du développement durable (Montreal, 2014) and the Plein sud Centre (Longueuil) in 2014.
She has participated in a number of group exhibitions such as Manif d’art 3, The Quebec City Bienniale (2005), (Im)mortal Love International Biennial Warsaw (2007), Peep Art/Art Voyou (L’Écart, 2009), Crafting Romance (ATHICA, 2009), the 16th edition of the Biennale Internationale de l’Image de Nancy (2010), Vestiges (Galerie BAC, 2015) and Proof 22 (Gallery 44, 2015). From 2001 to 2009 she was an active member of the artists’ collective Les Fermières Obsédées. She was the 2011 recipient of the Sylvie and Simon Blais Award for emerging artists. Catherine Plaisance holds a master’s degree in visual and media arts from UQAM, which was subsidized by the Quebec Research Fund for Society and Culture. She lives and works in Montreal.
