Mother to a teenager, **Mel Arsenault** is a French-Canadian visual artist based in Tiohtiá:ke/Montreal, on unceded Indigenous lands. She holds a master’s degree in sculpture and ceramics from Concordia University, where she also earned a BFA in painting and drawing. Her work has been featured in several group exhibitions across Canada (Nuit Chromatic, Nuit Blanche, Projet Casa, Espace Hoy, Centre Clark, Galerie Nicolas Robert) as well as internationally with Arusha Gallery in the UK.
La Guilde presented her first solo exhibition, *Shifting Histories*. She completed a residency at the Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center in Denmark and received the Outstanding Work and Meaningful Contribution to Ceramics award from Concordia University. Arsenault is also grateful to Carolyn and Richard Renaud for awarding her a research and teaching grant.

With the intention of bridging sentient and scientific knowledges, visual artist Mel Arsenault creates talismanic hybrids where corporealities merge to celebrate the intelligence of matter and its enchanting power. Working in ceramics and digital imagery, she sees her practice as closely tied to the pictorial traditions of painting and drawing.
Considering materials as allies with whom she collaborates, she leaves the final word to the contingency of their chemical alliances—practicing letting go and rediscovering her work each time, metamorphosed by the fire: *“an exercise in controlled disappointmen*
Instagram : mel_arsenault
Website: melarsenault.com

* This Interview is published in Issue 4

1. Hi Mel, tell us about your background. How and when did you first start making ceramics?
I used to work as a computer graphic artist but got tired of working behind a screen all day. I would work, and then, when I got home, I’d spend all my free time painting. At some point, painting became the only thing that made sense and made me feel good. With my supportive partner’s help, I enrolled in the Painting and Drawing BFA at Concordia University. (It’s a privilege I couldn’t financially afford at eighteen, plus I was ambivalent between biochemistry and the arts.)

I took ceramics as an elective class in 2012. I immediately fell in love with clay and spent too much time in the ceramics studio instead of painting. Because of that, I waited until my graduating year to take the second-level ceramics class. The funny thing is that despite having Jean-Pierre Larocque as an instructor—a ceramics legend and an awesome teacher—I almost dropped the class after two weeks. The first assignment was a self-portrait, and after working on it for 20 hours, it always ended up looking like a monkey! I must have started over 15 times before finally getting something that resembled me.

When I saw the work of Linda Swanson and was introduced to glaze chemistry—or glass skins, as I prefer to call them—the possibilities of ceramics opened up for me. This was the kind of material research that could keep me endlessly interested.

2. What is your process like? How do you begin to work?
My works are a synthesis of questions, observations, and learnings: How do the relationships between organisms (humans included) and the environments they evolve in affect their well-being and behaviors? I read a lot of research papers and listen to podcasts—On Being with Krista Tippett is definitely a favorite. These activities germinate and become reference points for my work.

I draw rough sketches to determine forms and proportions and then start building shapes in clay—but I rarely stick to the sketch. I’m constantly in exploration mode and attentive to the behavior of the material. It feels more like I’m drawing, adding, and subtracting clay as I go.

3. Could you explain your fascination with the intelligence of matter and its enchanting power, and how it translates into your artistic exploration?
Yes! I'm interested in the inventiveness of nature, which I understand as a form of intelligence. Take crypsis, for instance—the ability of an organism to simulate patterns or scents as camouflage. Like the mimic octopus that can pass as other sea creatures, or the Kamilla butterfly that imitates a leaf. These adaptation strategies blow my mind.

In my work, this translates to how shapes and patterns can evoke different interpretations. When someone looks at The Senses Grotto, they might see a seashell, a sexual organ, an eye, a cave, or something else. I love that ambiguity—that moment when we don’t quite know what we’re looking at.

4. How do you perceive the relationship between the formal rhymes of matter’s fractal architectures and the elements such as oxygen, water, saps, and bloods that they convey?
To move around bodies—on the earth’s surface or underground—oxygen, water, saps, and blood all travel following similar fractal patterns. Whether microscopic like neuronal connections, or gigantic like root systems of forests, these pathways are recurring motifs in my practice. They often act as both metaphor and structural support in my work.

5. You mention celestial and cellular bodies as a concoction of atoms forming clay, neurons, flowers, lactobacillus, microscope lenses, caterpillars, and shells. How do these diverse elements inspire and inform your creative process?
This understanding sparks total fascination in me—it’s a thought of supreme beauty. Recognizing that everything in this world is made up of atoms in different proportions profoundly moves me. This awareness of natural magic acts as soul food. In my work, it comes out as a celebration of color and the matter that makes this world possible.

6. Describe a real-life situation that inspired you.
After my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I began reading studies about brain degeneration. I attended a conference on brain imaging and met a neuroscientist who generously shared his research images. I was surprised to discover that the forms in those images looked strikingly similar to a piece I had already made. That synchronicity felt like a sign that I was on the right path.

7. How has your practice changed over time?
Color has always been my utmost interest. But in ceramics, color is tricky. When you apply glazes, you have to imagine what they’ll look like after firing—unlike painting, glazes never look the same before and after. Unfired, they’re often beige or reddish.

For a long time, I made small pieces that I glazed individually and assembled into still lifes. This made it easier to curate color schemes. The miniature format also helped convey ideas using fewer materials. But that approach limited my engagement with how minerals interact in the kiln. Sometimes they shift subtly—other times, they change dramatically.

8. You mention experiencing “controlled disappointment” each time your work metamorphoses through the firing process. Can you describe how this exercise in letting go shapes your artistic growth?
Yes! These are Grayson Perry’s words, and they perfectly describe what it’s like to open a kiln. You never know how the heat will have transformed the work. Sometimes fire is an ally; sometimes it doesn’t want to work with you.

If you experiment with ceramics, it teaches you how to let go—how to adjust expectations. You must release the idea of what the piece was “supposed” to be. That mindset has made me more patient, resilient, and better equipped to face unpredictability.

9. Can you discuss any specific challenges or rewards you’ve encountered while working with ceramics and exploring the intersection of science, art, and spirituality?
A challenge: I’ve been searching for a very specific green glaze for the last two years. I could just buy one—but I’m stubborn and want to make it myself. The reward? I’ve discovered a lot of beautiful things while chasing “the one,” even though I haven’t found it yet.

As for the intersection of science, art, and spirituality: I believe in Nature as a deity, and some of my pieces are altars that honor that belief. I’m a passionate learner, and science helps me understand how things work—like biological systems. I’m especially fascinated by tools that reveal the invisible, like microscopes. The round glass in A Garden for Winter is a wink to that love.

10. How has the city you live and work in influenced your art?
About five years ago, the Rosemont town hall launched an initiative to replace parking spots with flower beds. At first, people were upset—but those flowers have made a huge difference.

During the COVID lockdowns, when we weren’t allowed to leave our neighborhoods, I went on long walks with my dog, London. That’s when I started noticing the flowers, the rusted cast-iron gates, the art nouveau stained glass windows. These details had always been there, but I’d never had time to truly see them.

The flowers and trees made me feel better. That led me to research the connection between viewing nature and mental well-being, which brought me to physicist Richard Taylor’s work on how observing fractal patterns can reduce stress.

Living in a Nordic city makes me crave color and vegetation. Being among flowers and trees—and hearing their leaves rustle in the wind—is truly soul food.

Mel Arsenault

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