Zoé Julien-Tessier is a self-taught artist who explores creation through an intuitive approach to drawing, painting and installation. Her imagery features mixed-gender characters with unusual structures. She is interested in the body and the concepts of the norm/outside the norm, in a colourful visual universe that is at first sympathetic. A second look, however, takes us into a kind of disturbing surrealist circus. In her primitive, symbolic aesthetic, both humans and animals have their place.

Alongside her work in teaching, dance and the performing arts, she is also interested in the concept of set design, costumes, staging and static ways of expressing movement. In her recent practice, painting has become an environment or set to stage objects she has worked on and repurposed (mannequins, animal-shaped trinkets, glass globes). Increasingly bypassing a conventional work presentation format, she now focuses on a more immersive type of installation. Zoé Julien-Tessier lives and works in Rouyn-Noranda. Her work has been presented at L'Écart artist-run centre, the centre Bang and the Musée d'art de Rouyn-Noranda.

Zoé Julien-Tessier has been selected by Skol as part of the PRESENCES project. Following her residency at Centre SAGAMIE, she will take part in a group exhibition at Skol in spring 2025.