Camille Charbonneau
Camille Charbonneau works with the surviving images from their failure within Mormonism. Viewing this haunted state as a type of contamination of the present, they observe the slow transformations of these dissonant, inherited symbols within a queer mind, unmoored from their original system of power. Their sculptural installations are often peacefully disturbed by masses of handmade insects, imposing architectural monoliths, cumbersome floor installations, or the viewer themselves. By recontextualizing sacred symbols outside their prescribed environments, Charbonneau references the positionality of queerness. The unsettling feeling caused here by the weird, the eerie, dirt, and failure is considered as an invitation towards alternative ways of knowing, softening the boundary of rigid definitions.
Biography
Born in a Mormon family on the unceded territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation/Gatineau, Camille moved to Tiohtià:ke/Montréal in 2010 to study fine arts at CÉGEP Marie-Victorin from which they graduated with the Bourse Arts Plastiques. They graduated with distinction from Concordia University’s Painting & Drawing BFA program in 2020 and completed their MFA in the same program during 2025 while being awarded the Shirley Reed Graduate Scholarship and the Tom Hopkins Memorial Graduate Award on multiple occasions.
Charbonneau’s work has been shown in Québec, Ontario, the United States, and Belgium, notably at Concordia University’s FOFA Gallery (2019), the Musée d’art contemporain des Laurentides (2022), the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery (2023), the Church History Museum (2025), the Fonderie Darling (2026), Stems Gallery (2026), and the Centre Clark (2027). Their work appeared in publications such as Vice MTL (2018), Le Soleil (2024), and Guerlain (2025).
Recent exhibitions
| 2026 | A Light That Never Goes Out, group exhibition, Fonderie Darling, Montréal, CA Épaves, solo exhibition in collaboration with Jannick Deslauriers, Stems Gallery, Brussels, BE |
| 2025 | Unmoored, solo exhibition, Blouin Division Project Space, Montréal, CA 13th International Art Competition, group exhibition, Church History Museum, Utah, US Unmoored, solo exhibition, 5425 Casgrain, Montréal, CA Queer Asynchronies, group exhibition, United Contemporary, Toronto, CA |
| 2024 | The House Is a Large Cradle, group exhibition, Projet Casa, Montréal, CA |