Jessica Arseneau
Jessica Arseneau’s artworks gently transport us to an in-between state, midway between wakefulness and sleep, physical and virtual, dream and reality. Through video installations and sculptures, Arseneau delves into our perception of time and reality, and into the economics of attention in the era of globalization and digitization, drawing inspiration from the theories of American philosopher Jonathan Crary. Themes arising from science fiction, alternative realities, and dystopian worlds such as those imagined by author J. G. Ballard also play an essential role in her approach. Her works are deployed within a meticulously designed light and sound ambience that is at once enveloping, disorienting, and slightly discomfiting. She plumbs subjects such as invasive artificial light and sleep deprivation, as well as their effects on biorhythms and wellbeing.
- Julia Eilers Smith, excerpt from the text for Est-Nord-Est, Artist Residency
Her work walks the line between the conscious and the unconscious. Starting from still or filmed images, she creates atmospheres and enhances them with other elements such as light, sound, or text. Often taking inspiration by science ficiton, mythology, or an imagined future, her pieces unfold at an extremely slow pace, sometimes in suspended time, opening fictional spaces dominated by their own tensions.
- Excerpt from the exhibition brochure of Power up, imaginaires techniques et utopies sociales, La Kunsthalle Mulhouse
Jessica Arseneau is an acadian artist who grew up near Telagadik-Tracadie, Canada. She holds a bachelor of Fine Arts at Université de Moncton and a master in Media Arts (German Media Art Diploma) with distinction at the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig (HGB).
She won the “Artist of the Year in Visual Arts” prize at the Gala des Éloizes in 2024. Her solo exhibitions include among others Soleil immobile at Motoco, Mulhouse, Surrounding Uncaring Skies at Galerie d'art Louise-et-Reuben-Cohen, Moncton, The Screen Under My Eyelids at Helmut, Leipzig, and Nothing but a Constant Glow at Spinnerei Archiv Massiv, Leipzig, 2020.
Her work has been exhibited at Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin, Bandung Photography Triennale, Bandung, Galerie der HFBK, Hamburg, Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, Mülheim, D21 Kunstraum, Leipzig, Festival 9ph, Lyon, Friche la Belle de Mai, Marseille, Traverse Vidéo, Toulouse, Fonderie Darling, Montreal, Galerie Sans Nom, Moncton and a&o Kunsthalle Leipzig.
Since 2021, she is part of the artists' collective DELTA