New Diptych by Michelle Bui at The Centaur Theatre in Montreal
October 2, 2025
The Centaur Theatre, Montreal
McBride Contemporain is pleased to announce the inauguration of Souffle, a new public artwork and diptych by represented artist Michelle Bui, unveiled at the Centaur Theatre in Montréal.
Created as part of the provincial government’s program allocating 1% of publicly subsidized renovation budgets to the integration of public art, this work marks the final step in the Centaur’s extensive renovation project. Beginning October 3rd, Souffle will be on permanent view outside the doors of C2, greeting patrons as they enter and exit the theatre, and underscoring Centaur’s mission to celebrate the artists and storytellers of Quebec.
From folds of clay, paper, and fabric, Souffle conjures the fleeting presence of bodies in motion. Enlarged through photography, these fragile figures evoke bone, skin, and suspended forms — both vulnerable and powerful. Inspired by the language of theater, the work recalls ancient drapery and stage curtains illuminated by a single beam of light. At once sculpture and performance, Souffle embraces the ephemeral: a fragile balance of gestures, sustained just long enough to be seen.
This diptych, shaped from drapery, folds, and fragments arranged on a sheet of newsprint, reveals the implicit presence of bodies in transformation. Enlarged to human scale, the material becomes a raw field of possibilities — a space where forms reinvent themselves, held like a breath between reality and fiction.
