Rosalie H.Maheux

I would like to acknowledge the support of the Prince Edward County Art Council in the realization of PARASITE. The work has been created during the Art Residency Program (January 2021) at the Prince Edward County Art Council.

PARASITE is an art installation that mocks the superficiality of the typical resort décor. Using physical forms borrowed from iconic resort structures, the conceptual underpinning of the project engages with the appropriation of foreign aesthetics utilized to captivate a capitalist audience. Thinking of these forms as physical manifestations of the monetization of affect—what is the feeling associated with these objects, and why are they so compelling in spaces of leisure?

PARASITE addresses the power of aesthetic simulation as a way to turn feelings into consumption. I consider how the imposition of imported environments into natural spaces creates an atmosphere of profitable excitement.

By building a simulated environment in an interior space, I mirror the illusion of these resorts. Resorts impose artificial nature onto an already existing natural landscape—is this a form of exploitation? Can one space become a parasite on another space? The resort functions as a hyperbolized representation of our daily reality, bringing to the forefront the effects, and affects, that result from this process of simulation. By recreating these forms outside the context of the resort (a simulation of the simulation), without the imperative for capital gain, I reduce them to an essence that is empty.

Flower and grass, 8 x 16’, 2020.

$$$Cha-Ching$$$ is a 8 x 16 feet site-specific installation made of flowers and grass where I explore tensions, alongside sites for resistance, that exist within so-called terminal capitalism. Called living billboards or advertising gardens, topariums are large-scale advertising signs that use floral and rock arrangements to spell out corporate logos, brands and flags. Typically used by large corporations, they are often seen on the side of highways and busy commutes, intervening and exploiting the natural landscape for the sake of capital gain.

Associated with anti-establishment and anti-capitalist framework, graffiti is an integral part of urban infrastructure, in the same way that outdoor advertising functions to compel the individual moving through a given space. By juxtaposing these diametrically opposed concepts—graffiti and advertising—I aim to engage in a dialogue on socio-political ruptures in the degrading contemporary present. The chosen site features a very unique aesthetic with old farm buildings and overgrown pasture land which confronts the rift between urban and rural settings. By changing the materials and site associated with graffiti and advertising strategies, I aim asking: who has access to these spaces, and what power do these locations have?

Site-Specific installation / 2019-2020

10 x 6 x 10, Wood.

By reducing the house to its aesthetic value—or façade—while rejecting its essential function, I explore the culture of appearance and its extremes, the concept of privacy and how particular aesthetics are understood as means of social protection. Through this process, using only the decorative elements in the construction of these structures, I also create ruins. Ruins are diametrically beautiful and ugly, harmonious or disruptive; it is all depends on how we iconize, perceive or tolerate them. Similar to one’s own self in a social environment.

Maybe Ruin Later proposes a critical dialogue on appearance, beauty, and the public versus the private. By playing with the concept of façade, I ask: what reality do we agree to show, and what do we prefer to keep private? Though, if a house has no walls and no roof, can the absence of these vital structural features be seen as a form of negative evidence? If these elements are invisible, were they ever there? Ruins presume a sense of loss—who decides what remains, and what is imagined as having been there before?

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I would like to thank Ian Langdon for his incredible support, help and limitless skills in the realization of this work. Thank you.

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I would like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario, in the achievement of this work.

Je tiens à remercier le Conseil des arts de l’Ontario, un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario, de son aide financière, dans la production de cet oeuvre.

Resin, low-tech lights, satin, wood and found objects. 2018.

Documentation from exhibition with Third Space Gallery (St-John, NB) (Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada) and TRUCK Contemporary (Calgary, Alberta, Canada)

Saintes is an installation incorporating a series of resin sculptures casted from the inside of hollow Virgin Mary statues. By treating the negative space inside the statues as the “new icon”, Rosalie H. Maheux removes both physical and psychological aspects related to the Virgin Mary, thus offering a contrasting new perspective on the representation of women.

With the shapes obtained from the interior cast of the hollow statues and the re-appropriation of catholic shrines, the work confronts the idea of procreation versus pleasure while proposing an intergenerational and critical conversation between the artist’s catholic cultural background and her feminist views.

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This project has been produced with the support of the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council and support from Canada Council for the Arts.

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I would like to sincerely thank Ian Langdon for his support and help during the creation and on-site installation of the work in New-Brunswick. Thank you!

Pickerel skin, spandex, rope and tree branches. 2017

Concrete, water, LED lights, smoke machine, wood and plants.

2 x 3 x 5', 2017

Strands is an ongoing collaborative, live performative, visual and musical project with musician Jasmyn Burke from Weaves. With an over head projectors, lights, installation, costumes and/or dancers, we produce unique atmospheres, aesthetics and motions for every performed songs. 

Documentation NXNE, Toronto 2018:

Ride the Tempo / Tiana Feng: http://ridethetempo.com/2018/06/23/alx-veliz-strands-skye-wallace-nxne-6-16-2018/

Blare Magazine: http://blaremagazine.com/2018/06/22/photos-nxne-2018-at-yonge-dundas-square/

Music In The 6: http://musicinthe6.com/nxne-2018/

Ladies, multiple, various sizes, urethane resin, concrete, 2016.

In Christianity, the Virgin Mary is seen as the greatest of all women, mothers and wives Because she was graceful, obedient, faithful and humble, she is portrayed as a role model and the ultimate representation of women.

Cast from the negative space of various plaster statues of the Virgin Mary, Ladies is a series of sculptures that functions as a laboratory and an inventory. The laboratory experiment involves shifting between reality and representation, the commonly known object and its non-figurative image. I remove any typical and physical features from the representation of Mary and reduce it to its most minimal and unrecognizable state. I divert the idea of the icon and the role model to its veritable structure by filling and exploiting the emptiness behind the object/image. I try to offer a more realistic and diverse perspectives on the image of woman by rejecting all physical and psychological aspects imposed by the Virgin Mary, a symbol manipulated by male-dominated institutions.

During Quebec's "Great Darkness" stories would circulate about priests who were constantly encouraging women to have more children. They would sermonize to those who failed at their marital duties. My grandmother was a fervent catholic during this period and devoted to the Virgin Mary. She had 13 children and became the stepmother of 6 others. Based on my family story, I wanted to illustrate the pressure of procreation by creating a large inventory of mass-produced objects. However, with shapes and stereotypically gendered colours that recall sex toys, I am playing with the concepts of virginity and procreation in opposition to my beliefs about freedom of sexual choice, experimentation, non-heteronormative standards, sexuality for pleasure, and freedom of choice.

Impress the Reaper

Sculpture, 44"x21"x59", 2014-2015.

Wood, pink satin with trimming, padding and embroidery, miscellaneous hardware including handles and name plate.

The dualism of death and life is explored in Impress the Reaper, a life-size sculpture of a coffin suggesting a backbend posture alluding to 'Eros and Thanatos', the theory expounded by Freud to expresses the duality between human nature's basic instincts. Eros, which drives the instinct of life, love and sexuality is expressed through the coffin’s design and materials. Thanatos, is expressed by the coffin itself. The backbend shape of the coffin suggests a physically active reading between the viewer’s body and the work. This sculpture proposes an alternate to traditional funeral practices in proposing an orgasmic end and flirts with Shakespeare’s euphemism of the “Little Death”.