Venus, Mother of Pearl

Heidi Taillefer was born in 1970, and lives and works in Montreal, Quebec. She attended weekly art classes as a child at the La Palette art school in Beaconsfield, Quebec, focusing on watercolor and various types of mediums. By the early 90’s Taillefer began working as a commercial illustrator in tandem with her fine art projects, but by 2004 she devoted her time fully to fine art, exhibiting internationally in both gallery and museum venues.

Her paintings often depict subjects comprised of seemingly incongruous objects characterized as symbolic, which form a complex composite of elements and add a contemporary spin to often classical icons. Taillefer's work highlights our growing hybridization with technology, in which she depicts “machine-like” constructions. Her approach is to infuse primordial aspects of the human condition into these hybridized humans and animals, and seeks to remind the viewer of the inescapable nature of our being despite our increasing merger with technology.