RESURFACING - NEW PHOTO BOOK @PARIS PHOTO @POLYCOPIES

October 31, 2023

A follow up to her debut monograph Entangled (Deadbeat Club,
2020), Resurfacing furthers Maude Arsenault’s visual poetry with ongoing,
honest exploration of the female experience.

Entangled encapsulated a pivotal
moment for Arsenault’s work, representing a shift in perspective and personal responsibility.
“After years dedicated to creating glorified images of women,” she said of her
success in fashion photography, “I came to question my role and influence in the
transmission of models of femininity.” While Entangled reflected on her transition as an adult and a parent,
and on the cultural expectations and societal roles of young women, we meet
again with Arsenault further down the road in Resurfacing. Time has passed and family life
has fractured and splintered with it. Surfaces crack under a varnish of quiet
and soft tones, as folds and crevasses are mirrors of an inner, newly
reappropriated body. Through the pages of the book, it is an intimate
questioning of female representation, domesticity and parenthood that the artist
offers us.

Resurfacing is an essential extension
of Arsenault’s work, translating the delicate and subdued power of her images into
a tactile, textured design—giving amplitude and rhythm to Arsenault’s feminist
visual language.