Born on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, Michelle Sirois Silver spent her formative years on Canada’s west coast on Vancouver Island. Her art practice and the slow works she creates are heavily influenced by a childhood philosophy of make do can do. She graduated with a BA in Communications from Concordia University and worked in educational broadcast and independent production in Toronto ON and Vancouver BC.
Michelle began making hand hooked rugs for her home in 1996. That same year her first instructor Barb Kennedy, Calgary, AB instilled in her the importance of working with designs you love. She was also heavily influenced by Gloria Crouse’s WA (1925-2011) innovative textile work. By the late ‘90’s she was teaching the craft form, organizing events and would go on to give talks about the craft form and creativity which led into an art practice creating hand hooked, stitched, and 3D works for exhibition.
Ms. Sirois Silver exhibits in the United States and Canada. Her hand hooked works (Earth/Water) were presented in her first solo exhibition at the Fibre Essence Gallery in Vancouver in 2006. Most recently, she was invited to participate at the DuLin Biennale in Deschambault, Quebec.
Ms. Sirois Silver works from her studio in Victoria, British Columbia. www.michellesirois-silver.com
StatementThis new work is driven by desire. My narratives are never stated directly. Instead, they are implied. In this installation the narrative draws on a deep desire for human connection and happiness and is demonstrated through the implied interactions of organically shaped 3D hand hooked forms.
I am curious about the ways the textile surface draws us in, activating our human desire to touch it. In a gallery setting physical tension is created when the viewer must resist their impulse to touch. To resist is counterintuitive to human nature. Instead, we must content ourselves with circling the work and use our imagination to observe and engage with the elements, bringing our own unique voice to the narrative and ask ourselves, "What do I desire?"
