The Octopus Body is a series of paintings premiered at Prouvost’s exhibition Stranded by Your Side at Lisson Gallery, New York (2023), and which contain her signature playful, sensual imagery and texts - either included in the canvas or as separate signs - that address the viewer directly. Unusual in her painting practice, the colour palette is now softer and employing pastel blues, greys and flesh tones, recalling the peaceful hues of the sea at dusk, and the dreamy life below the surface of the water.

Featuring a breast moving towards a pair of perky marine lips, with the white text ‘Becoming You’ on a black wooden sign below the canvas, the painting furthers the analogy between humans and animal creatures, motherhood and the octopus, positioning the marine life within the nurture of the female body.

Dominated by swirling fantastical representations of octopi, the work approaches fantasy. Images of an octopus appear throughout Prouvost's oeuvre, recurring in installations, paintings and films as a representation of the foggy border between feeling and thinking. With the overwhelming majority of an octopus’ organs and receptors formed in the tentacles, the creature thinks by feeling and feels by thinking. Just as the sentient octopus extends her tentacles in various directions, Prouvost’s narratives branch out, intertwining the personal and collective.

Prouvost’s approach to art is one of continuous translation and fluid evolution; she starts the process with an oil sketch on paper, that is then translated into oil on canvas. The shifting and slipping of meaning and definition, the union of creatures into one wholeness, utopia and surrealism, are important threads running through her work.

The Octopus Body is a series of paintings premiered at Prouvost’s exhibition Stranded by Your Side at Lisson Gallery, New York (2023), and which contain her signature playful, sensual imagery and texts - either included in the canvas or as separate signs - that address the viewer directly. Unusual in her painting practice, the colour palette is now softer and employing pastel blues, greys and flesh tones, recalling the peaceful hues of the sea at dusk, and the dreamy life below the surface of the water.

Featuring a breast moving towards a pair of perky marine lips, with the white text ‘Becoming You’ on a black wooden sign below the canvas, the painting furthers the analogy between humans and animal creatures, motherhood and the octopus, positioning the marine life within the nurture of the female body.

Dominated by swirling fantastical representations of octopi, the work approaches fantasy. Images of an octopus appear throughout Prouvost's oeuvre, recurring in installations, paintings and films as a representation of the foggy border between feeling and thinking. With the overwhelming majority of an octopus’ organs and receptors formed in the tentacles, the creature thinks by feeling and feels by thinking. Just as the sentient octopus extends her tentacles in various directions, Prouvost’s narratives branch out, intertwining the personal and collective.

Prouvost’s approach to art is one of continuous translation and fluid evolution; she starts the process with an oil sketch on paper, that is then translated into oil on canvas. The shifting and slipping of meaning and definition, the union of creatures into one wholeness, utopia and surrealism, are important threads running through her work.

The Octopus Body is a series of paintings premiered at Prouvost’s exhibition Stranded by Your Side at Lisson Gallery, New York (2023), and which contain her signature playful, sensual imagery and texts - either included in the canvas or as separate signs - that address the viewer directly. Unusual in her painting practice, the colour palette is now softer and employing pastel blues, greys and flesh tones, recalling the peaceful hues of the sea at dusk, and the dreamy life below the surface of the water.

Featuring a breast moving towards a pair of perky marine lips, with the white text ‘Becoming You’ on a black wooden sign below the canvas, the painting furthers the analogy between humans and animal creatures, motherhood and the octopus, positioning the marine life within the nurture of the female body.

Dominated by swirling fantastical representations of octopi, the work approaches fantasy. Images of an octopus appear throughout Prouvost's oeuvre, recurring in installations, paintings and films as a representation of the foggy border between feeling and thinking. With the overwhelming majority of an octopus’ organs and receptors formed in the tentacles, the creature thinks by feeling and feels by thinking. Just as the sentient octopus extends her tentacles in various directions, Prouvost’s narratives branch out, intertwining the personal and collective.

Prouvost’s approach to art is one of continuous translation and fluid evolution; she starts the process with an oil sketch on paper, that is then translated into oil on canvas. The shifting and slipping of meaning and definition, the union of creatures into one wholeness, utopia and surrealism, are important threads running through her work.

The Octopus Body is a series of paintings premiered at Prouvost’s exhibition Stranded by Your Side at Lisson Gallery, New York (2023), and which contain her signature playful, sensual imagery and texts - either included in the canvas or as separate signs - that address the viewer directly. Unusual in her painting practice, the colour palette is now softer and employing pastel blues, greys and flesh tones, recalling the peaceful hues of the sea at dusk, and the dreamy life below the surface of the water.

Featuring a breast moving towards a pair of perky marine lips, with the white text ‘Becoming You’ on a black wooden sign below the canvas, the painting furthers the analogy between humans and animal creatures, motherhood and the octopus, positioning the marine life within the nurture of the female body.

Dominated by swirling fantastical representations of octopi, the work approaches fantasy. Images of an octopus appear throughout Prouvost's oeuvre, recurring in installations, paintings and films as a representation of the foggy border between feeling and thinking. With the overwhelming majority of an octopus’ organs and receptors formed in the tentacles, the creature thinks by feeling and feels by thinking. Just as the sentient octopus extends her tentacles in various directions, Prouvost’s narratives branch out, intertwining the personal and collective.

Prouvost’s approach to art is one of continuous translation and fluid evolution; she starts the process with an oil sketch on paper, that is then translated into oil on canvas. The shifting and slipping of meaning and definition, the union of creatures into one wholeness, utopia and surrealism, are important threads running through her work.