06/05/2026
In 2025, Sara Robichaud opened her house and studio for an exhibition/performance that included a tour of her Nanaimo, BC home. Here’s some of what Marie Leduc of Making & Meaning, had to say about it:
“After touring the house, Robichaud guides us back through the kitchen and out the door to the studio. This is the space reserved specifically for artistic production. Here Robichaud transfers her images onto canvases. The rectilinear surfaces are marked by the familiar shadows and outlines found on the interior walls of her home and painted with the same palette of soft colours – pink, mauve, pale green, and soft grey – which are punctuated by lace textures, gloss finishes, and a deep matte black. The ironing board appears again with its multitude of diamonds on one canvas while the shape of a vanity mirror is described on another. The works are all in progress. Tape masks off shapes and bare canvas awaits new layers of colour and gel. Like Robichaud’s house, the resolution of these works will only come through a process of painting, scraping, layering and reworking.
By opening her home and studio, Robichaud is sharing a personal intimacy that a gallery exhibition cannot replicate. She wants the visitors to see her work, process, and home as one and the same – as both painting and muse. As she explains, “I understand that the work is beyond my control when it goes into a gallery so this is an opportunity for me to share where it truly comes from.” At the same time this venture leaves Robichaud feeling vulnerable. As she tells me later, after the other guests have left, “having people in my home where they can see all of the flaws, and think that they know who I am because of it, makes me uncomfortable but, at the same time, has a charge to it that compels me creatively.”
You can read the rest of the essay at the Making & Meaning Substack or at thisgallery.org.
Her current exhibition at THIS, closes Sunday with an artist talk and tour at 2 pm.
THIS Gallery, 108 e Broadway (alley entrance) Vancouver, BC
