From May 28- June 13, Ar Prim hosted a group exhibition of finalists for the Albert-Dumouchel Prize for undergraduate artists. This was the 32nd edition of the collective exhibition Première impression. For me, the standout work was by School of Art at Université Laval’s Jessica Martin-Lafond, who presented Wolf in Lover’s Clothing. This work is an artist’s book inside a wooden box, the pages of which can be turned with tweezers using gold-coloured satin gloves. I enjoyed the discovery process of this piece, the disorientation that ensues from figuring out how this works, the tactility, and the use of colour and texture.

Martin-Lafond is a printmaker and artist book creator, and her work pays homage to those traditions, but is also reminiscent of female surrealists, such as Merret Oppenheim, who also worked with unusual objects and sexuality. There’s always a childlike exhilaration when one is allowed to handle the art, and this piece is no exception. There is a sense of the theatric with putting on the satin gloves, as well as a sexual metaphor to putting a part of your body into a covering to handle the art itself, to explore it within the box.

The dusty pink and gold tones, felt, and doilies and other touches made me think of antiques and femininity. This piece, with its vulvas, predatory wolves, drawings of hands, rumpled bedsheets, and delicate flowers with fragments of love-lorn poetry is playful, cheeky, and gives a sense of discovery, vulnerability, and intimacy.

You can follow her on Instagram to see her latest works, as Jessica Martin-Lafond is an artist you may wish to keep your eye on.