Elisabeth Picard was born in 1981 and lives in Montreal, Quebec in Canada. She won various scholarships (SODEQ, CALQ, FQRSC, CRSH and Concordia University) and gained a diploma in Fine Art, specialising in fibres, from Concordia University in 2011. Her works have been displayed in Canada, France, Lithuania and Cuba. She specifically took part in the Biennale Internationale Du Lin De Portneuf in 2013. She was artist in residence at Est-Nord-Est in St-Jean-Port-Joli, Quebec, in 2011, and at Artmandat in Barjols, France, in 2012. Some of her works are in the Montreal city collection and private collections in Quebec, France and Portugal. In 2016, she will be exhibiting at the Biennale Nationale de Sculpture Contemporaine in Trois-Rivières, as well as creating a permanent work of art to complement the architecture for the CHSLD of East Angus in Quebec, which will be mainly created with painted cable ties.
Elisabeth Picard draws her inspiration from architectural structures generated by growth and transformation processes in nature. Applying artisanal techniques, the artist uses industrial materials to create a contrast between the materials’ unrefined aspect and the new natural aspect that her intervention bestows on them, enhancing their properties with sculptural manipulations (assemblage, torsion, painting and use of translucence) to raise them to a level of elegance which expresses their potential. Cable ties allow her to work the sculpture and assemblage by playing around as if it were infinite Meccano. The compositions created on various scales develop, transforming themselves into models or floating architectures. Backlighting intensifies the relief by transmitting visual vibration to the translucent colour, which emanates a mysterious ambience typical of watery depths and bioluminescence.