This photo collage created in September 2024 includes scans of my brain, related to a surgery required for a blood clot caused by a traffic accident which occurred in August 1999. A speeding bike hit me while I was crossing Sherbrooke street, with three friends, near Parc Lafontaine. Not only was it a near-death kind of experience, it happened at a moment when everything in my life seemed to be falling apart. Following the surgery, I experienced a long period of deep depression.
I kept these brain scans for years, tucked away in the myriad of materials I’ve amassed in my art studio for future art projects. That accident, and all the events surrounding it, at the time, was such a big deal to my 23-year-old self, that the medical documents, contained in a large brown envelope, remained important archives for a long time. For 25 years, I kept them and felt sure that they would eventually be used in a very important piece of artwork. And at some point, when one of my very best friends was dying of cancer, confronted by the fact of death, I did try to use them to make something important. I took them out of their brown envelope and cut them up. I made a large collage work work entitled “You are your ancestors’ dreams”, featuring repeated square images of these brain scans and photographs of my two grandmothers, Alice and Suzanne, among many other elements. The completed work was big and ambitious and bold but actually kind of shit, if I’m honest. It was scattered in focus, trying to be and do too many things at once, and ultimately, not very visually stunning or well crafted. But I kept that as well, for at least over a year until I eventually, took it outside, destroyed it and discarded its parts on the street on garbage day.
Now bits and pieces of those brain scans still remain in my box of collaging materials but, they no longer hold special status.
In the making of the collage featured here, they were incorporated only because the brain imagery echoed the found image of the bald man’s head. The serious weight those materials used to carry has been shed, the trauma they represented has mostly healed and evaporated. The final image is lighthearted and chill and no has nothing to do with trauma, pain or brain surgery.
All to say that the materials I use are sometimes heavy with personal symbolism and sometimes, not at all. Ultimately, what makes art work “good” is how it looks when completed and and how well the sum of its parts is visually able to communicate meaning to others. Some pieces take a long time to be made, some are created in minutes. Some are very profound and some very shallow. Regardless, my personal life story always manages to seep into my work somehow, often through the materials used. It’s ok with me if that meaning remains hidden.
