After quitting a top job as a senior art director, Montreal’s Premier Art Vandal, Miss Me has been blazing a path for marginalized voices across the globe. Exploring her own struggles with gender, class, race and society through the use of icons from the past. Her former job as art director saw her creating and promoting superficial and oversimplified images of women and sexuality that was the polar opposite to her own beliefs. So, she quit, and instead, became an oppositional voice fighting against the ever-present images of women as nothing more than objectified consumers plastered all over billboards, store windows and screens.
Even though she has sold pieces to the likes of Madonna, she still insists on posting her art illegally. In the interview 303 Magazine conducted with her last year, she explained, “I think it’s important to keep a balance in society by doing something illegal that isn’t necessarily harmful. But more than that, there’s something beautiful about using your own time and money to share something just for the sake of it. People understand and pick up on that because it’s the opposite of everything else — it’s the opposite of wanting to make money off something, just doing it for the idea and message. That’s a strong, powerful energy that humans share and connect through.”
It's refreshing to see a successful artist who still does something for the people and not for galleries and the highest bidder. You don't need to go to a gallery, museum or expensive boutique to experience her art.
The switch in her life from art director to art vandal came after she was assaulted, and it turned her life upside down. She knew she couldn’t return to the life she had before,
“I’d made a list [of things I wanted to do], because I was scared to end up with nothing and to get confused, and on this list, [art] was at the bottom. It said, ‘paint and draw again,’” she says. “It’s the only thing I’ve done since.”
She took up drawing again after her assault, but the art was private, then one day she threw caution to the wind and decided to take it to the streets. One morning at 3 am, in the dead of winter, she put up wheatpaste posters on a wall in Montreal. The images were simple: female characters from pop culture touching themselves, proudly owning their sexuality. That was the start of her new life.
Spreading her art and message across the globe, she has channeled the momentum of her art’s success toward a new movement, forcefully advocating for women as role models and invaluable members of their communities. She regularly speaks on radio shows, is featured in magazines, on panels, and at conferences as the voice of new style of feminist activism. Miss Me has also organised her ideas into workshops and teen programs. Her message is resonating around the world as she continues to shine brightly on the stage and on the street.
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