Rapprochement entre les générations : la maladie de Huntington, Renée A. Bouffard-McManus
A set of two rectangle-shaped paper collages on black paper by artist Renée Anne Bouffard-McManus. The work on the right uses eleven cut swirling blue watercolour squares arranged in descending order; the spaces allow the black of the paper to create eight horizontal, repeating, and descending rectangles and two squares. The work on the left uses the same swirling blue watercolour squares, but with a total of ten. The blue squares are shifted more to the right, and in a different pattern, the spaces allow the black of the paper to create ten vertical rectangles of varying sizes. Photo credit: Henry Chan
Titre : Rapprochement entre les générations : la maladie de Huntington
Artiste : Renée A. Bouffard-McManus
Date : 2026
Technique/Matériaux : Aquarelle, papier
Dimensions : 2 pièces, 29,7 cm x 42,0 cm chacune
Forme/Genre : Collage
Mots-clés/Thèmes/Balises : Intergénérationnel ; Guérison ; Maladie chronique
Déclaration de l'artiste :
This set of collages are an exploration of rapprochement, specifically how connection and separation is expressed within Bouffard-McManus’ own and her family of origin’s lived experience with illness and caregiving inside the Huntington Disease (HD) community. HD has been the heritage of the maternal side of her family for as far back as they can trace, up to 5 generations. The blue paint pulls from Bouffard-McManus’ memory of jumping in deep water as a toddler and the overwhelm, disorientation, and fear that followed. Similarly, the transgenerational trauma of parental illness and death and the responsibility of caregiving leave HD families uniquely devastated and overburdened to navigate the systems and structures of healthcare. Cutting up, repurposing, and rearranging her past watercolours mimics the shifting and adapting that ensues and reclaims these health stories and the impact they have on the journey of her family of origin, despite the fact that neither her mother nor Bouffard-McManus have HD. Salt was used in the watercolour technique as a nod to themes of healing. The squares and black spaces pull from the visuals of familial quilting and DNA sequencing. In 2023, she became a caregiver for her cousin with HD. Her mother was a caregiver to his mother (Bouffard-McManus’ aunt) and also to her own mother (Bouffard-McManus’ grandmother), both of whom died of HD.
La maladie de Huntington (MH) est une maladie neurodégénérative mortelle d'origine génétique qui entraîne des symptômes physiques, cognitifs et émotionnels. Il n'existe aucun remède. Pour plus d'informations : https://www.huntingtonsociety.ca/
Contexte culturel / Histoire derrière l'œuvre :
This work reflects on bridging the knowledge gained through Bouffard-McManus’ MFA (2025) to produce artwork about her own and her family of origin’s lived experience with caregiving inside the Huntington Disease (HD) community. In 2023, she became a caregiver for her cousin who has HD and lives in the Ottawa area. This collage was made while working with Ontario Health at Home to try to move him to a long-term care home closer to her in Toronto.
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