Adèle Blais app – Painting History
Adèle Blais is a Montreal-based artist known for creating colorful, pop art-inspired portraits of powerful, often forgotten, historical women. Her artistic style combines painting and textured collages which include the addition of words, giving her works a literary aspect. She uses her unique style to highlight the contributions of women throughout history and promote gender equality.
In 2024, she launched an app called Peindre l’histoire [Painting History] featuring her series entitled Fortes. Using augmented reality, viewers can project her works as 3D holograms directly in their own homes for a unique viewing experience. Each work is also accompanied by a biographical text, originally written in French, and narrated by well-known and inspiring speakers, including the French actress Marion Cotillard and Franco-Canadian singer and multidisciplinary artist Gaële.
The Problem
Certain texts required adaptations for anglophone audiences in order to understand certain references and the amplitude of each women’s contribution to advancing women’s causes. The texts were also written in a poetic storytelling style which required interpretation to keep the same style and tone as in the original.
The Solution
As these historical figures are rather unknown, it took some research to understand each woman’s role in history in order to capture the original intent of the text. Where aspects of the text were unclear, the writer was contacted for clarification to remove any ambiguities in the translation.
Maggie Sirois, mixed media on canvas, 21”x 30,” 2023
Second, each translation required a careful review to ensure proper style and tone. As mentioned, in some cases, additional information was added to the translation to provide context for anglophone and allophone app users. These adaptations included providing descriptive translations or precisions regarding foreign places which are rarely known to English speakers, or the decision to leave certain words in French that do not have an English equivalent, with an additional explanation provided to clarify the term.
The Outcome
The app has received an average rating of 4.8/5 stars on the App Store, with users appreciating its originality, the importance of the project and, of course, the 3D images of the paintings themselves.
Colette, mixed media on canvas, 24”x 24,” 2021
More biographies are being added on a regular basis in pursuit of the objective of bringing to light the contributions of women to promoting gender equality throughout history.
“Thank you so much! Everything is perfect and the additions are very relevant. Thank you for giving a voice to these women through your translations!”
~ Jacinthe Desrosiers, Coordinator and collaborator for Adèle Blais