Statement

Cinthya Chalifoux is a multidisciplinary artist preoccupied with themes of psychology, soma, power dynamics, and the roles attributed to genders in society and its institutions. Through her practice, she wishes to create a space for reflections that she aims to provoke in her audience through the engagement of multiple sensory channels. The artist's conceptual methodology involves formal and empirical research, writing, and altered state of consciousness. Textile fibres are a recurrent catalyst in subversive hybrid forms and assemblages such as sculpture, drawing, printing, embroidery, direct application and weaving, to which installation, video, photography, and sound are sometimes annexed in simple and plural forms.

Bio

Cinthya Chalifoux lives in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal) and has mixed heritage (French and Anishinaabe descent). She moved to Turtle Island at the age of 17 years old. She started a self-directed journey into mastering the art of structured garment fabrication that entailed local professional training as a pattern drafter (École des Métiers des Faubourgs de Montréal, 2004) and a tailor (EMFM, 2006), combining these studies with several mentored in-shop trainings. Following graduation, Chalifoux co-founded Cin Tailors, a custom-tailoring garments brand with a feminist DNA. The couture house offers the highest standards of male tailoring construction and services to a female client base. Notably, Chalifoux and her gender convention-bending brand get national media coverage, such as being nominated for the Globe and Mail Young Catalyst Award (2014).

After 9 years of professional practice in the field of semi-industrial tailoring design and custom fabrication, eager to learn more about handcraft and to adhere to more environmentally-friendly production methods, Chalifoux learns the meticulous art of handcrafted bespoke tailoring for men and women alongside fifth-generation and Saville Row (London) trained tailor Rory Duffy (2015) and at AFT in France (2016). From 2015 to 2018, she trained in haute couture embroideries (Lunéville, needlework, and goldwork embroidery). In 2015, Conseil des Métiers d’Art du Québec recognizes her as a métiers d’art Artisan. In 2016, some of her works were shown in installation format at the McCord Museum.

Often blurring the lines between garment making, sculpture, and critical engagement, her career as an artisan ultimately led the artist to turn to visual arts. In 2020, Chalifoux enrolled in Concordia University Fine Arts Department to complete a BFA, majoring in the Fibres Department (obtention in 2026). Alongside those studies, being an autonomous type, she develops conceptual frameworks around her art production, creating hybrid methods to surface embellishment as critical language interconnecting past traditions and current issues. To this, she notably proceeds to include autohypnosis in her art production method concerning performative and material formats, which led her to undertake professional programs in therapeutic hypnosis as a practitioner (EFPHQ, 2023) and a certified therapist in therapeutic hypnosis (EFPHQ, obtention in 2024).

The artist currently devotes her time to her art practice and academic undertakings. Her works are in private collections in Canada and Europe.