GOLD DUST (detail), site-specific performance at the Rennie Collection at Wing Sang, Vancouver

Marie-Hélène Tessier is a Canadian artist who works collaboratively in the field of literary performance. Marie-Hélène’s works combine a wide range of media and disciplines, to create shared experiences that question relationships and collective existence.

E q u i l u x, installation on Second Beach, Vancouver

The artist’s online portfolio collects her works and performances in a way that reveals just enough without showing us the whole piece. In many cases, because the work is performative, what exists in the portfolio is a series of inspiration and referential images, sometimes photographs of the performance itself and sometimes images and text that sit beside the performance.

ODE to the Librarian, a page on Marie-Hélène's website

Overall, the work Marie-Hélène displays oscillates between highly conceptual and philosophical tones, run through a filter of low-brow, mundane, commercialized signs and signifiers. Many of Marie-Hélène’s works also incorporate very current media such as text messaging and Facebook, questioning art’s arbitrary separation from the everyday, and attempting to reposition it within regular activities. 

swimming pools swimming (sketch for painting), acrylic on paper