Francine Potvin, a complete artist who develops her work with drawing, primitive photographic techniques, ceramics, collage and installation, likes to pay homage to “the prodigious inventiveness of life; to the Anima Mundi.” From an early age, she celebrated living things, particularly the natural world of plants and animals, observing them with precision and patience. A resident of Farnham in the Eastern Townships, she recently exhibited at the Frelighsburg Art Center (2022). L’Asclépiade revisitée, from which this work is taken, was previously exhibited at Action Art Actuel (Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, 1999). She taught at Concordia University between 1993 and 2019.

Approach and works on display

L’asclépiade revisitée (1999-2023)

Milkweed has come a long way. Now inseparable from the monarch butterfly and its survival when females arrive from Mexico to lay their eggs in Quebec, this North American plant has not always been well regarded. In 1999, when Francine Potvin dedicated a major installation to it, in which these ceramics took part, Asclepias syriaca was essentially identified as a “weed” with a toxic sap. Since then, our culture has at last realized the virtues of this spectacular plant (in terms of thermal insulation, its wadding is more effective than down), and scientific communications now place greater emphasis on its inter-species alliances. This context allows us to rediscover Potvin’s visionary ceramics and cyanotypes, a primitive photographic technique that revolutionized herbariums in the 19th century. In an admiring tribute to botanical genius, she modeled the plant’s pods in all their forms.

Works by the artist