Avoidance, mockery, détournement, thematization. Yanik Potvin is interested in anthropology as well as aesthetics. In using the ceramic medium, its community, its history or its recurrences in the field of art, the artist borrows from transdisciplinarity (disciplinary overspill, fuzzy categories or breaking with conventions). His sculptural works, his drawings or his participation in performance projects underscores a tension between formal risk taking and a need to take on the artisanal side of his materials and techniques. His current approach seeks to merge a transgressive thinking with a structural one. Potvin lives with the doubt that art and its institutions may be an asylum for social marginality.

The artist lives and works in Hébertville. He holds a certificate in biology (UQAM), and a BA in anthropology (UdM) as well as an MFA (UQAC). He worked as a professional archaeologist between 2004 and 2018. Since 2012, his works have been presented in several Quebec regions, Alberta, France, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Greece and in the US. They are part of the collections of the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, the Kohoutov Ceramics Studio in the Czech Republic, the Medalta centre in Alberta, the Musée des Maîtres Artisans du Québec, as well as of several private collections. He is a founding member of the META group (2019), which concentrates on ceramics research. He is an adjunct professor at the UQAC arts and literature department and is currently pursuing a doctoral program in research creation at UQAM.