Montreal, April 25, 2023 – CIRCA art actuel is pleased to announce that this year the Pauline-Desautels Prize is awarded to Caroline Mauxion for her project « À charge de désir », presented in 2022 at Arprim, centre d’essai en art imprimé.

Please join us on Thursday, May 18th, 2023 at 5:30 pm at CIRCA art actuel for the award ceremony and to attend the artist’s presentation of her project.

The Pauline-Desautels Prize is awarded annually to a committed woman artist whose work in sculpture or installation relates to CIRCA’s mission, and has been outstanding in the eyes of the public and the artistic community during the last three years. Pauline Desautels’ generous contribution to CIRCA has enabled the creation of this award.

In her work, Caroline Mauxion develops a hybrid practice of photography and sculpture, drawing on the memory of her body, and thinking of this as an imprint and also a surface. In the project, « À charge de désir » which was part of the exhibition « Le murmure d’une empreinte » (curated by Elise Anne LaPlante), the artist reflects on developing a crip phenomenology through her lived body experience, which has involved various medical procedures. Each installation is an assemblage that produces multiple layers of meaning that are superimposed and presented as photographs on the walls and sculpture in the surrounding space. The different materials, volumes and textures combine to evoke a sensory place that creates awareness.

CIRCA art actuel would like to thank the 2023 jury members: Andrée-Anne Dupuis Bourret (artist, teacher and curator), Émilie Grandmont Bérubé (Director, of the arts service, culture and library for the city of Drummondville), Émilie Granjon (director of CIRCA art actuel), Fany Rodrigue (artist) and Catherine Sylvain (artist and professor).

Photo credit : Jean-Michael Seminaro