Monarch Beach I-II-III-IV

Originally from Texarkana, Texas, Bonnie Baxter settled in Val-David, Quebec, in 1972, and founded the print studio Atelier du Scarabée there in 1982. In particular, over the course of a decade, she published the entire corpus of Jean Paul Riopelle’s printed works. In her series Jane’s Journey (2008), which includes Monarch Beach, Baxter produces uncanny stagings conceived in sequences and from varied angles. She takes an autobiographical approach to this series, attributing the main role to a blonde woman who has her back to the viewer in each shot. The photographs of Jane’s journey embrace the human condition from a private perspective, while suggesting the iconographic familiarity of a postcard and sometimes creating an impression of déjà-vu. The colour palette seems inspired by Giorgio de Chirico or Salvador Dalí and adds a touch of surrealism and fantasy to the landscapes in this series.