Jeannette Sirois  

Bio/Statement

Jeannette Sirois is a Canadian visual artist whose practice centers on large-scale, hyper-realistic portraits created with coloured pencil, graphite, ink, and water-based media on paper. Set against stark, single-colour fields, these works strip away distraction, allowing the human presence to confront the viewer with quiet intensity.

Her portraits explore visibility, identity, and power, addressing themes of queerness, racism, and mental health. What distinguishes this work is the integration of text—not as caption but as an active visual language. Words appear in multiple ways: tattooed across the face, carved deeply into skin, or embedded into backgrounds like ghostly bureaucratic echoes. The typography itself is intentional: Sirois often draws from fonts historically associated with authority—those seen in government documents, legal codes, and institutional forms once used to regulate and erase LGBTQ+ lives. By reclaiming this cold, hierarchical language and merging it with intimate human likeness, she transforms a tool of exclusion into one of defiance.

Alongside these texts, symbolic objects inhabit the portraits. Referencing the tradition of European aristocratic portraiture—where props signaled wealth and power—Sirois replaces those symbols with ordinary items chosen by the sitter. This shift dismantles the elitist framework of historical portraiture, grounding the work in shared humanity rather than privilege.

Every portrait is a collaboration, built through dialogue with the subject and countless layers of mark-making. Hyper-real rendering becomes an act of care, amplifying lives that dominant narratives have sought to edit out. These works assert: presence is not granted; it is claimed.

Influenced by Georgia O’Keeffe’s use of scale, Artemisia Gentileschi’s empathy, Piet Mondrian’s precision, Amy Sherald’s tonal restraint, Miró’s colour, and Calder’s dynamic forms, Sirois merges technical mastery with conceptual urgency. Her work has been recognized with the 2024 and 2025 Catalyst Artist Grants, a City of Vancouver public art commission, and awards from the Coloured Pencil Society of America. It is held in private and public collections, including the Surrey Art Gallery. Alongside her studio practice, she teaches through online courses, workshops, and mentorship initiatives.