michelle lacombe

I currently work with the body in a practice that is located somewhere between the concerns of performance and drawing. In my practice, I (conf)use body, language, mark marking and gesture to explore issues that relate to desire, longing, loss and absence.

Concretely, I use simple and familiar gestures to evoke emotional states that communicate, mark and map the relational. Spitting, staining, pouring, breaking, ripping and tracing are reoccurring actions. These accumulate, transform or dislocate familiar materials at sites of communication: the mouth, the hands, the skin, the breath, the surface (or body substitute). Although minimalist, the work is precise and unravels into a complex conceptual proposal, existing in a space where theory collides with experience.

Rooted in action, my practice amounts to an “undisciplined” research encompassing a variety of performative forms such as body art, performance, drawing, paper works, video, and fibres. These intersect to generate overlapping disciplines.

Michelle Lacombe (Montreal, QC) has developed a unique body-based practice since her graduation from Concordia University in 2006. Focusing on a visual language where bodily gesture and mark marking are entwined and confused, Lacombe creates short works that are both confrontational and tragic. Her work has been show in Canada, the USA and Germany in the context of performance events, exhibitions and colloquiums. 

Her practice as an artist is paralleled by a strong commitment to artist-run culture and alternative methods of artistic dissemination. She has worked at a number of Montreal galleries including articule and La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse. 

www.everythingidoordonotdo.blogspot.com

Image: Michelle Lacombe, Italics; Underlining for emphasis or marking words as words, 2010
Body modification/ collaborative drawing (detail of mark)