Marie-Jeanne Musiol assembles a vast energy herbarium with hundreds of radiant plants activated in electromagnetic fields. The waves that surround the living create a luminous corona imprinted by multiple sources: physical, interactive, cosmic influences. The energy signature of leaves fluctuates according to the situation - photograms captured directly on silver film without a camera in an electromagnetic field. Video also records in real time vital expressions of leaves as they pulsate in light.
Marie-Jeanne Musiol situates her research in a historical continuity at the intersection of photography and electricity applied to the study of plants, with a view to constitute a first "energy botany". In the wake of pioneering Anna Atkins'(1799-1871) cyanotypes of algae and ferns, her series of electrodynamic photograms explore the diversity of the plant world.
In parallel, the artist extracts mirror images of the cosmos embedded in the detail of leaves. These otherworldly landscapes open our vision to the porous boundaries of plants - fluid and dematerialized matter processing information from ambient light networks. The Radiant Forest: An Energy Herbarium, published by Editions pfoac, draws a creative arc leading from the world of leaves to celestial universes.
For the past 25 years, Marie-Jeanne Musiol's work has been shown in museums and galleries in Europe, Asia, the United States and Canada. Her installations and videos have been featured among others at the Maison européeenne de la photographie and Palais de Tokyo (Paris), ZKM (Karlsruhe), TENT Rotterdam, Ludwig Museum (Budapest), New Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow), Photon+ Techno Art (Taipei) and Oakland University Art Gallery (Rochester). She has worked with the Montreal Botanical Garden and the Jardins de Métis. Her photos and light works have also been exhibited at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Canadian Museum of Nature, the Ottawa Art Gallery, the Prefix Institute of Contemporary Art (Toronto), the Baie-St-Paul International Symposium of Contemporary Art, in Laval metro stations (Poussières d'étoiles), and more recently at the National Gallery of Canada.
Her work is represented in several collections: Art Bank, Art Gallery of Ontario, Bibliothèque nationale de France, City of Ottawa, Desjardins, Global Affairs Canada, Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, National Bank, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa Art Gallery, ScotiaBank, TDBank.