Hélène Routhier

Hélène Routhier was born in the Saguenay, in a region of winter and space; with her family, she camped every summer on the shores of Lac-Saint-Jean, in contact with the open sea, the wind and the forest. The men in her family and in the neighborhood fished and hunted, and fascinated her; this is her heritage. At 18, she moved to Montreal, her city of heart, diversity and culture.

Since 2019, she has divided her life between the metropolis and the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula, Gespeg, which means "the end of the world" in Mi'gmaq. She spends winter and summer there, with a view of the horizon, in contact with the ice, the tides, the mountains and, of course, the salmon rivers.

At the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the Université de Montréal, she completed her studies in psychology and became a clinical psychologist, dedicated to better living and freedom of being.

In 1997, she discovered painting, first watercolor, then acrylic, and along the creative path, she became interested in printmaking in 2016 and became a member of Atelier Circulaire, where she has continued her practice ever since.

She is fundamentally self-taught. She feels she owes a great deal to the legacy of all the professional artists with whom she has built herself as an artist: Hélène Goulet, who gave her the tones of color; Marie-Ange Brassard, the taste for printing; Dominique Sarrazin, the rigor of composition; Seymour Segal, freedom; Jacques Clément, audacity; and Jacinthe Tétrault, reflection and the exercise of critical thinking; and to all the talented and inspiring artists she rubs shoulders with at Atelier Circulaire.