Lyse Lemieux is a painter and sculptor born in Ottawa, Ontario in 1956. She studied at the University of British Columbia, receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1978.
Scope and content
The work consists of an assemblage installed in a document box, titled "Communion," by Lyse Lemieux, 1997, composed of three parts: two cardboard boxes, 26 x 15 x 12.5 cm, labelled "Joseph" and "Marie;"
within "Joseph" is a loose, plastic laminated text of a poem, written in French by Lemieux, and a fixed photocopy of a photograph of a schoolhouse, and within "Marie" box is a loose plastic laminated text of a story written in English by Lemieux, and a fixed photocopy of a photograph of a schoolhouse; between these two card boxes is a gap filled by a silver stemmed cup engraved with the words "Peche (Sin)," the whole surmounted by a large text fixed to the inside document box lid, bearing the title "Communion," and accompanied by a plastic laminated card with instructions for the handler.
Note
The artist stated: "The first three years of my elementary schooling were spent at a school in Ottawa called 'Les Soeurs Blanches D'Afrique.' This school was a one class schoolhouse where grades one, two and three were taught at the same time in the same room. The old stone house was also where these missionary nuns lived. Their name came from the beautiful white habits they wore to protect them from the African heat. In our classroom was a black chalkboard, 20 wooden desks and, most excitingly a real Altar. The Altar was in a bay window to the left of the classroom guarded by the statues of the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph. He dressed in a brown toga and staff and she in blue with the serpent under her right foot. One day during recreation time in the basement of the old schoolhouse my teacher asked me to go upstairs to the classroom to get a chalkboard brush. I was alone in the classroom for the first time. Empty, quiet and still. Finally alone with my Altar. I made my way across the wooden desks and over to the bay window where the Virgin and her husband stared at my impertinence. The serpent daring me on. I opened the small door of the tabernacle with the brass key that always sat in the keyhole. I removed the chalice from it's dark case. I removed the lid and put my hand inside the vessel. I removed the host from it's cup and put it in my mouth. I was in grade three. I had not yet had my first confession. I had the original sin. I returned downstairs to the recreation room, excited, impassioned by my adventure and convinced that I would never again be the same. The nuns have never found out."
