Sarah Bertrand-Hamel
The Encyclopedia and The Fabrication of Paper

Media: Charcoal pencil drawing on paper (abaca and flax) handmade by the artist

Artist Statement:
The style of this large-scale drawing is inspired by the fourteen illustrations of papermaking in the fifth volume of Diderot and d’Alembert’s encyclopedia (1751–1772). In the drawing, I reveal how I made the giant sheet of paper I have drawn onto. The top panel of the drawing is a depiction of the large sheet of paper being made, and below, a representation of the tools. Included with the renditions of myself and my three main helpers (from left to right: Danie Bertrand, myself, André Hamel, Merlin Bertrand-Hamel), I incorporated illustrations of four artisans from the eighteenth century copied directly from Diderot and d’Alembert’s encyclopedia. They work ghost-like alongside us. The inclusion in the drawing of these figures from the past is a nod to the long history of papermaking, a craft passed down from person to person.

Biography

Sarah Bertrand-Hamel lives and works in Montreal. She holds a Master in Fine Arts from Concordia University (2014). In 2017, she was the first prize winner of the Valcellina Award (Italy) and of the Paper in Particular annual exhibition (United States). Her work has been exhibited in Canada and internationally, recently in Japan where she also studied Japanese papermaking as part of two artist residencies. Her works are featured in public and private collections, including the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (Canada) and the Museo national de la cerámica (Mexico).