Sara-Jeanne Bourget is a visual artist from Quebec, living and working in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. She holds a BFA in Studio Arts from Concordia University (2015) and an MFA from Emily Carr University of Art and Design (2019). She is currently an assistant professor in Drawing at Emily Carr University.

Her drawing and printmaking practice engages cyclical processes that seek to imitate natural cycles and phenomenon. Her work questions how the act of mining for materials can be reclaimed, and is reflected in various natural systems, including non-human interactions. Subverting the word “mining”, from its ecologically, geographically and socially devastating impacts in the world to an action that seeks to uncover ideas and pathways is an anti-colonial research strategy. As a white descendant of French settlers, living in Canada, extractivism has defined her livelihood and stained her relationship to nature. Observing how non-human individuals mine their environment offers new perspectives to foster relationships with the world. A fascination with surfaces altered by animal/plant/human/time-based erosion creates space for new forms (of life) and future possibilities.

Materials and methods inherent to drawing and printmaking unite in a symbiotic relationship to shape hybrid images that blur traditional understandings of both disciplines. Often working/mining from old/discarded charcoal drawings as base for her drawn matrices, new images are constructed from layers that cover or marks that excavate. Repeated forms and patterns in her compositions are seasonal; a series of gestures and actions taken, performed cyclically. While abstract marks and forms arise intuitively, representational elements carry meaning, memory, and emotions. Her work synthesizes her fascination with resilient natural plants and animals that populates her everyday since childhood, as well as the recurrent imagery she encounters that shape her identity, values, political views, and role as a mother.

Artist bio from www.sarajeannebourget.com