Born 1965, Saint Lambert, QC. Lives and works in Montreal.
Seven years ago, Doucet began focusing on a series of mixed-media portraits of anonymous subjects as well as collaged found object-text, which developed from French language sources. She presents cool depictions of her human subjects in a transfer of information from a set of family photographs found in a flea market to woodblock prints. The national identity of the subjects? Lebanese, Greek or Croatian? No one knows. Doucet transforms her plaintive subjects by re-presenting the strength of the essential "feminine" to become very striking and powerful. In a similar manner Doucet's found object-text collages act to absorb viewers and demand interpretation of surface matter. French text gives way to a new language completely fabricated over the last five years by Doucet and so rules for interpretation are withheld. One easily melts into the handcrafted image of the text as if invited indoors from the cold by a secretive, ancient scribe in an ivory tower.
In collaboration with Dominique Pétrin, Julie Doucet will also present the site-specific L'animalerie Ju-Do, the ultimate pet shop.
www.drawnandquarterly.com
www.lacentrale.org