Valentine Alma
Valentine Alma
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Honoring bodies, spirits, and community through art and ritual.
Chat des Artistes
2205 Parthenais
Tiohtia-ke, Montréal, QC , Canada
Biography
Valentine Alma is an Artist & Witch working in Tiohtià:ke
Photo Credits: Carlos Mao, Catherine Simard, Océane Leclair & Alex Tran
All artworks Property of Valentine Alma @All Right Reserved 2020
Valentine Alma was born in Paris and raised in Montreal / Tiohtia:ké. She earned a BFA with Honours in Painting and Drawing from Concordia University in 2017 and spent the following years recovering from burnout, learning Tarot and developing her portraiture skills by filling dozens of sketchbooks. In 2022, she earned a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, which allowed her to create Play Bodies; a massive oil-painted interactive installation around the queer collective body. She is deeply involved in community work, hosting rituals and art nights in her studio, organizing artistic multidisciplinary events as well as mentoring and teaching indigenous youth with InPath. Her work was featured in many group shows in Montreal and she is preparing for a solo show in Toronto in 2025.
Artist Statement
Using the intuitive and emotional language of colors, I translate the undulations of energies, sensations and stories in oily saturated waves. My focus on the body, not as an object of desire but as a vessel of memory, ancestral wisdom and resilience, is rooted in my own healing journey extended as an invitation for collective healing. My paintings, like bodies, hold space for these intangible forces, colliding matter with magic.
As I have been getting more grounded in my flesh, I have entered in relation to plant kin and their medicine. Barely perceived as alive, plants are weeded out, built upon and destroyed. We have forgotten how fundamental to the ecosystems we inhabit. In painting the portrait of a flower with the same sensibility to their inner worlds I would for a person, I wish to invite us to gaze upon plants as complex and vulnerable beings as equally worthy of life as we are - if not more.
To deepen that invitation, I have been experimenting with participatory installations, taking paintings off the walls and allowing the public to physically interact with the art. ‘Play Bodies’ allowed people to touch and take an active part in the work, creating a safe space for encounters that fostered dialogue, reflections and collective joy. In engaging the visitor’s playfulness, I aim to democratize art and encourage a visceral proximity with the necessary conversations of our times, transforming the rigid traditional discipline of oil painting into a research playground.
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CV
Education
BFA, Painting and Drawing, Concordia University, Montréal, QC (2013–2017)
DEC in Visual Arts (Arts plastiques), Cégep du Vieux-Montréal, Montréal, QC (2010–2012)
Grants & Residencies
Concept to Realization grant for “Play Bodies”, Canada Council for the Arts (2022)
Gold Leaf Residency, Arquetopia, Puebla, Mexico (2023)
Mikw Chiyam, Wemindji, Quebec (2024)
Selected Exhibitions
Play Bodies (solo), Union Française de Montréal, Montréal, QC (2023)
Abri Tempo, Espace Transmission, Montréal, QC (2023)
Parallel, Aussenwelt, Montréal, QC (2023)
Valentine A. (solo), Théâtre Ste-Catherine, Montréal, QC (2021)
Le Bestiaire, Espace 13/2, Québec, QC (2021)
Ste-Valentine-de-Kamouraska (solo), Manoir St-André, St-André-de-Kamouraska, QC (2021)
Representations of Pain, online exhibition (link)
Ephemeral Fortitude, Galerie Popop, Montréal, QC
Interim, Ancienne École des Beaux-Arts, Montréal, QC
Dix/Ten, Espace P12, Montréal, QC
Object Lesson, Centre des Arts Actuels Skol, Montréal, QC
Other Experiences
Art Mentor, InPath / N’we Jinan ArtWorks (2022–present)
Studio Assistant, Pascale Girardin, Montréal, QC (2019–2022)
Assistant to Program Coordinator, Fibres & Material Practices, Concordia University, Montréal, QC (2016–2017)
Press / Media
I mostly share my work through independent networks and social media. Here are a few interviews and resources:
Podcast: Vulnerability in Life and Art — Episode 69
Video interview: Interview with a journalism student (YouTube)
Interview about my residency — Arquetopia
