To understand how local artists shape the material to extract their vision of the world, you have to meet them. Spotlight is a series of portraits that appears every end of the month. Forays into the world of creators who work on their works in unusual ways, away from current cultural events.
Her 177,000 Instagram followers know her as Queen Esie, a sort of “female hair activist” alter ego. We will come back to this. But Esther Calixte-Béa has always considered herself an artist above all. As she presents the fruit of two years of work at the Maison de la culture Janine-Sutto, she opens the door to her workshop, revealing a colorful universe, rich in symbols and textures.
In his paintings, symbols — hairstyles, clothing or surrealist decorative elements — tell the stories of characters forming a fictional ethnic group that the artist calls Fyète-Souhou. “ Pride means “pride” in Haitian Creole, and Souhou“divine”, in Guéré, an Ivorian dialect that my grandparents speak, she explains. It’s like my name, which reflects my origins. Calixte is the last name of my Haitian mother, and Béa, of my Ivorian father. »
The work of textures, for its part, marks his painting, playful and spontaneous. His exhibition Welcome to the garden unveils around twenty new works. Wooden shapes protrude from the frames, other materials mix with acrylic to represent afro hairstyles in relief and life-size mannequins stand between the paintings, wearing shiny outfits in Fyète-Souhou fashion. Even the walls were painted a vibrant yellow and green, courtesy of curator Cécilia Bracmort.
“From my first solo exhibition, which we put on together at La Centrale Powerhouse gallery, in 2021, Cécilia told me that she did not want to work in a white cube [cube blanc] typical, says the artist. I was seduced by his vision of the police station, where as many elements as possible (paintings, sculptures, decorations) converge to create a coherent universe. »
Beyond the borders
It was during a trip to Europe, after her bachelor’s degree in visual arts at Concordia, that Esther Calixte-Béa “wanted to step out of the box and develop [son] fictional ethnicity beyond the painting.” “In Montreal, they wanted to put me in a box. There, I discovered other black artists who were tearing up their canvases, who were having fun. […] In fact, all my trips have been educational. It was by visiting Haiti with my family and immersing myself in the bright colors of this country that I knew I would like to become an artist. »
His work already extends beyond the borders of Quebec. The young designer, who still lives with her parents in Brossard, notably found herself on the cover of the British magazine Glamour UKin 2022, in addition to having been featured in Fashion Canada.
It all started in 2019, when she posted a photo series titled Lavender Project while she was still studying. She appeared on stage wearing a lavender-colored dress that she made, proudly revealing the hair on her chest. “In Ivory Coast, my grandmother taught me that most women of our ethnic group are hairy,” she says. Today, they shave under the pressure of beauty standards conveyed by the media, but at one time, they all showed their body hair. »
It was a friend who advised her to send her project to blogs and magazines. “The reception exceeded my expectations,” says Esther Calixte-Béa. I was once called a “female hair activist” and I loved that label. Ultimately, this advice from my friend, which made me realize that I could promote my work myself, still influences me as an artist. »
In other words, her status as an influencer now gives her the confidence to break into the Art world. And for good reason: she always publishes beauty advice and messages on female hair growth to her thousands of subscribers, under the pseudonym Queen Esie. It is clear that this is successful for her, since she has appeared in the major media both in Quebec (The Montreal JournalTVA, CBC) and abroad (France culture, Konbini) to talk about it.
“Identity crisis”
This text nevertheless remains his first portrait as an artist in a Quebec daily newspaper, at a time when his career is taking off. At only 28 years old, she is already in the collection of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and has exhibited her works at the Ottawa Art Gallery (2023), at Hugues Charbonneau (2022), as well as at the Musée des beaux-arts arts of Montreal.
His current exhibition at the Maison de la culture Janine-Sutto nevertheless appears to him to be his most important to date: “I have never presented so many works at once. It’s also a project that is very close to me. I painted different scenes with characters that evoke my own relationship to my origins. »
This is about a particular group of black women. They wear white t-shirts symbolizing their assimilation into Western culture. Little by little, over the course of the paintings, they are welcomed by women living on an island inhabited by the Fyète-Souhou ethnic group. They then take off their t-shirts, engage in all kinds of rituals and end up accepting their afro hair and body hair. “Through these fictional stories, I wanted to express the very real impression of being in an identity crisis. »
A theme that she has not finished exploring, especially as she begins to develop a real iconography around her fictional ethnicity. “For the moment, this universe is well received and above all allows me to explore other disciplines, such as sculpture. […] I am moving forward in art as in my activist activities: by projecting myself into the future, one year at a time. Until beauty standards change, I will remain motivated to remind women that they have the right to show themselves as they are. »
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