TJO is an artist who explores obsessive-compulsive disorder through performative gestures, collage, dance and video installation. Born in Chicoutimi, he is a member of the Mashteuiatsh community and draws on Innu myths to examine territorial disconnection and the self. His work centers on naive red figures set within deep blue mental landscapes, representing human archetypes and psychic energy.
His Blue Rooms series set the template for this language, using mixed media to stage naive archetypes of red energy within a spontaneous exploration of inner dialogue. TJO extended the approach in Apollon, staging deep blue, photography-based dreamscapes around the Greek myth of Apollo, played by Calvin Frederick, and his brother Dionysus, played by Thierry Lambert. He has linked the series to his own experience of being cut off from his First Nations heritage as a child through discriminatory education. His debut self-portrait BLeU, released under a CC0 license, established the red-figure motif and inspired tributes from other artists, including weepingsnakes's inxanity in BLeU. He also collaborated with jstngraphics on BleU Universe. In ROugE, a 2023 watercolor work, he used permanent red pigment for his archetypes, invoking an Innu tradition in which the color signals hunters to their allies in the dream world and wards off bad spirits.
