Geneviève Roy
Montreal, CanadaBiography
Originally from Quebec City, Geneviève Roy lives and works in Montreal. In addition to her architectural training at Laval University, she holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University. Having worked as an architect for several years, she combines her artistic practice with that of teaching interior design since 2010. She has also been pursuing a Master’s degree in visual and media arts at UQAM since 2018. Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in Montreal, Quebec City, Lyon, Bordeaux, Winnipeg and New York. Her fascination with the city and her particular view of the urban territory — strongly influenced by her background as an architect — are the anchors of her work, which deploys singular views of the built environment through drawing, model making and photography.
About the artwork
DIORAMAS (2021)
In this series of six images integrated into backlit boxes, the artist revisits the diorama, an ancestor of cinema and virtual reality. The diorama is a museographic device invented by Daguerre in the 19th century. It is usually composed of two-dimensional images and three-dimensional elements, and stages personal or historical events with chiaroscuro and depth effects.
Here, the artist summons viewers to a suspended space-time through small, intimate theaters set against the backdrop of the Clark Plaza construction site, observed in situ and photographed in the fall of 2019. Each image was reworked with photoediting software, then printed onto a translucent acrylic panel that was inserted into a box and backlit. Various fragments (construction debris, architectural elements) are integrated into the device. These miniature manufactured worlds, questioning the links between illusion and reality, are inserted in a rather imposing black cubic volume, which contrasts with the scale of these small magic lanterns, that may be observed by day and by night in the city.
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Photo : Camille Dubuc