Dominique Sirois

Transformation is the cornerstone of Dominique Sirois’s art practice. For the last decade, in addition to sculpture she has working with ceramics, a medium that itself incorporates different transformations of the material as it is shaped and fired, as it is dried and enamelled. For the last step, Sirois has learned to make her own mineral glazes, which give her works a matte, iridescent finish. She also explores colours produced with plant dyes and metals to create scenographic elements.

Sirois’s fascination with transformation goes well beyond the materiality of her works, as it is rooted in human experiences that summon spirituality. Her past sources in mythological narratives and mystical representations led her to an interest in alchemy. She combines these historical elements with contemporary references related to capitalist economics.

At Est-Nord-Est, Sirois continued her exploration of transformation by adopting a perspective focused on transition and movement. All processes of becoming and change inevitably involve a transition, a passage from one state to another. Thus, Sirois came to imagine forms that could serve as vessels, supports, even catalysts for metamorphosis. From clay, she shaped various circulation mechanisms, including ventilation ducts and air grilles. Sometimes, these objects were amalgamated with human forms, as a reminder that the human body itself operates through a complex system of ducts.

For one of her pieces, Sirois created a large-scale reproduction, again in clay, of a thoracic vertebra, to which she attached a copper tube as a spine. The choice of copper, with its high electric and thermic conductivity, highlights the synergy between the spine and the spinal cord that allows it to be a support structure and the transmission of neural impulses between the brain and the body.