When the Work Leaves the Studio: Thank You, Cowichan Public Art Gallery
Bearing Witness , my current solo exhibition, is on view at the Cowichan Public Art Gallery from November 28, 2025 to February 28, 2026 , and I want to take a moment to acknowledge and thank the people and the work behind this exhibition. Cowichan Public Art Gallery is a volunteer-driven public art gallery serving the Cowichan region, located on Vancouver Island, BC. Exhibitions like this do not happen through a single gesture or task. They are built through sustained attent
jeannettesirois
Dec 31, 20252 min read
Why I Need to Make This Work: When a System Doesn’t See You, It Shapes Your Entire Life
I keep coming back to one fact because it says everything about the world I live in. Although Canada recorded sex- or gender-motivated hate crimes before 2021, transgender and gender-diverse targets were largely absorbed into an ‘other sex or gender’ category. It was not until October 2021 that national police reporting expanded to explicitly code transgender and non-binary targets, making these forms of hate statistically legible as distinct phenomena (Statistics Canada - Ha
jeannettesirois
Dec 15, 20253 min read
When the Format Fails: How I Slowly Found the Real Idea Behind My Work
For years I believed my portrait work was about the queer body itself. I thought the drawings were centered on presence, absence, erasure, or the familiar narratives of exclusion: not allowed, not recognized, not at the table. But every time I tried to frame my work that way, something felt off. Too familiar. Too rehearsed. Too close to the language so many artists have done. The truth came into focus only when I started asking a different question.What if my work isn’t about
jeannettesirois
Dec 9, 20252 min read
Counter-Legibility: Rethinking How We’re Asked to Appear
Conversations about legibility often drift toward theory, but for queer people it begins somewhere far more ordinary. It begins in the small, daily adjustments we make before we step out the door. Recently I was talking with my spouse about clothes we wanted to wear—ties, sharper lines, bolder queer jewellery—and the hesitation appeared almost immediately. Not because we questioned our choices, but because we worried the world wouldn’t know how to read us. That hesitation, th
jeannettesirois
Dec 9, 20253 min read
