Pascale Jean (b. 1999) is a French-Canadian artist based in Montréal, with roots in the boreal forests of the Nord du Fjord-du-Saguenay. Working across oil painting and sculpture, she constructs hyperbolic fictional encounters in which bodies, objects, and forms of life become vehicles for examining the systems through which we classify what is foreign, vulnerable, or undesirable.
Drawing from diaristic archives, Jean develops fictional environments where the familiar becomes strange. Vegetation, saturated fields of colour, everyday objects, insects, and distorted bodies produce scenes that oscillate between intimacy, absurdity, and threat. Through entanglement, shifts in scale, and unexpected juxtapositions, these encounters destabilize distinctions between protection and destruction, rejection and fascination, and control and coexistence.
Oil painting situates these encounters within the historical language and aesthetic conventions of painting, while sculptures made exclusively from recycled paper pulp are shaped and painted to evoke ceramics, transforming a discarded material into objects that appear precious. Across both mediums, Jean explores how material and visual conventions influence what is perceived as valuable, familiar, strange, or worthy of attention.
Play, humour, and the grotesque allow Jean to disrupt these systems of recognition without resolving them. Figures and forms that might otherwise provoke rejection become vulnerable, strange, and familiar, creating a tension between attraction and unease that asks viewers to reconsider their own instinctive judgments.
Her work has been exhibited in Canada, Japan, France, and Mexico, and featured in publications including Hyperallergic and CBC Arts.
Photo by Gabriel Neamtu, courtesy of Croyds Gallery
"[Pascale's work is] immediately compelling in the way it operates through contradiction. It seduces through colour and play, yet unsettles through distortion, fragmentation, and the psychological charge embedded within figures. There is a strong sense that [Pascale is] not simply depicting subjects, but constructing encounters and moments where the viewer is pulled into a space that feels both intimate and unstable."
Kurt Beers, director and founder of Beers London
b. 1999 Saguenay, Canada
Lives and works in Montreal, Canada
Selected Solo Exhibition
2025 Jeu d'Ego - Maison de la Culture Marie-Uguay - Montreal, Canada
2025 Cucas Vienen de Noche - Casa Lü Sur - Mexico City, Mexico
2024 Women, Mukade, and Little Deaths - Studio Kura Gallery - Itoshima, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan
Selected Group Exhibition
2026 Echos – Aussenwelt.co – Montreal, Canada - for Montreal's Nuit Blanche
2025 Traces & Returns - JANO Gallery – Montreal, Canada
2025 Festival Hors Service - Ateliers 3333 – Montreal, Canada - for Canada’s Culture Days
2025 Foire Parallèle - Art fair, presented by Croyds Gallery – Montreal, Canada
2024 Soft Bodies, Hard Gaze (duo ) - Good Sport Gallery - London, Canada
2021 New and Noteworthy - Ho Tam Press – Vancouver, Canada
Residencies
2025 JANO Gallery - Montreal, Canada (6 months)
2025 Casa Lü Sur - Mexico City, Mexico (1 month)
2024 Aussenwelt.co at l'Union Française de Montréal - Montreal, Canada (3 months)
2024 Studio Kura - Itoshima, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan (1 month)
Education
2021 Bachelor of Fine Arts with excellent achievement distinction – Emily Carr University of Arts + Design - Vancouver, Canada
2020 International Exchange – Fine Arts – Tim Eitel Studio - École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts - Paris, France
2018 Diploma of College Studies (DEC) - Visual Arts - CEGEP de Jonquière
Grants, Award & Prizes
2024 Action Culturelle et Artistique - Awarded by LOJIQ for the Soft Bodies, Hard Gaze duo exhibition in London, Canada
2023 Action Culturelle et Artistique - Awarded by LOJIQ for the Studio Kura residency, in Itoshima, Japan
2020 Friends of Emily Carr - Awarded by Emily Carr University for artistic dedication and exceptional potential
2019 Brissenden Scholarship - Awarded by Emily Carr University to recognize great creative potential in the visual arts, specifically
highlighting works in painting or sculpture
Notable Collections
2026 City of Montreal - Montreal, Canada - Official announcement in January
2024 La Distillerie du Fjord - Saint-David-de-Falardeau, Canada
Private collections in Canada, Australia, France and Mexico
Selected Press
2025 Ryan Alexander Diduk for Niche Montreal, « The Immediate Data of Consciousness »
2025 Noémi Lincourt for Narcity
2025 Lea Collins for CBC Arts, " June logo is a last ‘symbolic’ collab with the late artist, Preston Buffalo "
2025 Claire-Marine Beha, for Sous La Fibre " Être artiste sur les réseaux sociaux : comment concilier création et promotion? "
2024 Abstract State - November Publication
2024 Grace Qiu for Verdant Journal - Spring-Summer 24
2024 Lakshmi Rivera Amin for Hyperallergic " A View From the Easel "
2024 Suboart Magazine Nr23 - p.124-125
2018 DUSFRENE, Jacques for Ici Radio-Canada – Boulevard du Pacifique
Collaborative Projects
2025 CBC Art – June Logo 2025 - Toronto, Canada
2024 Artch & Céline Bureau – Art Critique – Montreal, Canada
2020 Eitel Studio at L'ENSBA – Confinement Solidaire charity auction for ADSF – Paris, France
Selected Talks & Jury
2026 Maison de la Culture Marie-Uguay - Guest artist for the reveal of the selected artists of the Ma Permière Maison de la
Culture program - Montréal, Canada
2026 Maison de la Culture Marie-Uguay - Jury member - Montreal, Canada
2026 Arsenal Contemporary Art - In Conversation with Maskull Lasserre - Montreal, Canada
2024 Studio Kura – Artist Speaker – Itoshima, Japan