Interview
Ninon Parent
Born in 1964 in Rouyn Noranda, Québec, Canada, Ninon has been creating art one way or another her entire life.
In school she excelled in sports and art, but struggled with academics. Later, in college, she tried to study electronics but switched during her last year to go into art, where she studied ceramics for 3 years. After college, she was recruited by Cirque du Soleil.
Ninon is married to Peter Boulanger, who she met while touring with Cirque du Soleil. The two of them began a new chapter by creating The Underground Circus in 2003. In 2010 the couple bought a studio in Vancouver. Soon after, a knee injury saw her career in the circus forcibly slowed down, but Ninon took this opportunity to focus more on her art. She has since completed a degree in fashion, even winning an award for fabric innovation. This all attests to her innate creative talents across multiple fields; a born creative.
Could you tell us about your background and how you started your journey in the art world?
“I completed my degree in ceramics at CEGEP du Vieux Montréal. Later on, I opened a circus and gymnastic school in Longueil Québec and became a professional acrobat.
I began my circus career at the Ecole National de Cirque in Montréal, and had my first professional performance with Cirque du Soleil. Afterwards, I created my own circus in Vancouver with Peter Boulanger, called The Underground Circus, where I currently work. My experience in acrobatics and stunts guides me as the head trainer, developing conditioning and flexibility programs for all who enter the studio. I also direct and oversee the aerial, contortion and handstand choreography, and I head up concepts as well as fabrication for the elaborate costuming and textiles seen in every TUC performance.
After a knee injury while performing stunts in the movie industry, I stumbled head first in the fashion industry. I earned a degree in fashion design at Blanche McDonald and an received an award for fabric innovation.
Nowadays, I focus my energy on developing my style through painting the images I see in my morning dreams.”
What would you say inspires you most?
“I never intended to make paintings. But in between seeing a counselor for depression, caused by my knee injury, and going back to school for fashion design, I began to find a way to tap in the well of inspiration I felt inside me.
Three things happened: One, remembering a vivid windy dream from when I was a teenager. Two, beginning my spiritual adventure with the Hu. And thirdly, my morning visions were the last deciding factor. That’s when I decided to paint this image. I knew in my gut that I needed to do this. It was stronger than just wanting to do this; it is a calling at this point.
I draw inspiration from fashion figures in magazines, from my morning visions when I wake up, from my photographs of landscapes and close-ups of flowers, and from colours and texture.”
“Since my teenage years, I have been fascinated by the wind. I’d dream and hear very loud wind, and it was only when I woke up that I realized the wind was only in my inner world.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“If I work with acrylics, I notice that more than half of the painting is about extreme weather. For example, I have series of paintings called Snowed Out, Rained Out, Tornados and Hurricane Eye. I’m working on wind and burned landscapes at this time. I think about the viewer when I paint - how the texture will catch their eye and intrigue them up close, and then how the colour will draw them to the painting.
When I work with pen or gouache, I draw fashion figures. I mostly choose models with movement or lots of fabric pattern.
When working with pastels, I create city landscapes.”
Which artists influence you most?
“Anselm Kiefer.”
How would you describe your work?
“My style is direct. I remember working on my acrylic paintings, Snowed Out, Rained Out and the Tornado series, and my mentor told me that my work is very raw. When I used only white, the texture became the colour.
I’m not painting to save the earth, but my work urgently speaks to people concerning the changes of the weather pattern. My raw style in the Extreme Weather Patterns series is almost a slap in the face to wake up. This has felt like a call to me, to make these thoughts heard, something I am destined to do.”
What is your creative process like?
“I like to use raw design and texture to portray extreme weather patterns. I mix sediment material such as crushed leaves and pine needles with acrylics. This allows the raw brush strokes to have a sculptural force, showing the extreme weather of my spiritual inner world, created through a depiction of the physical world. I paint on stretched canvas, applying layer after layer of paint, rubbing it off with a piece of fabric after it’s dry.
Because of how I use the paint, it takes a long time to dry, so I work on multiple paintings at a time. Three weeks for three paintings. The entire extreme weather pattern series will take a few years. I’d like to begin painting a Tidal Waves series too.”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“In September of this year (2021), the Underground Circus’s giant marionette, David, was the feature presentation at the Beakerhead Festival, where, in a world first, it scaled Calgary’s Devon Tower to 450 ft. View the video here.
This design, which had previously won a Fabric Innovation Award, was featured as part of the fashion show at the 2017 BC Tech Summit (see image below).”
Websites: www.byninon.ca & www.undergroundcircus.ca
Instagram: @ninonparent
