Beginning in the 1970s, Jill Culiner's art is a satirical humorous look at life in our society.

Jill Culiner's grotesque pulp figures don't want to come out of their boxes. Protected from the laughter of spectators, they tirelessly play out their daily life, spying on neighbors, reveling in sordid news, or lavishly spreading themselves out under the sun. Following in the footsteps of the Inspector Shortsighted, we are confronted by human stupidity and vanity. We can recognize ourselves, and although the artist’s corrosive humor sometimes makes us cringe, we nonetheless look on this reflection of our society with pleasure.

Jill Culiner's creations are as nonconformist as her life, a journey that has taken her from Toronto to St Jean-sur-Erve, France via Germany, Hungary, and Turkey. Her existence outside the norm has enabled her to look at the world with an ethnologist's gaze, and to be intrigued by the strange customs of the individuals who populate it.

-Antoinette Le Falher, Curator of the Museum of Laval

Jill Culiner's art is ugly and vulgar. It searches everywhere, and finds impossible things that make you uncomfortable. All her little Mickeys are blood red, spinach green, or disgusting pink; and all are alike, which only proves that Madame Culiner doesn’t know how to draw (sculpt). Strangely enough, at each exhibition people laugh and spend hours looking at all these so-called gags and things. But I’ll bet that, here, in my country which is a model of good taste and equilibrium, she won’t sell even one of her "works". She can take them all back to her native New York where they’ll end up in some museum of horrors, in between Picasso and who knows who!

-Bruno Dostert, Ars pro vita

A life-saving vigilance

Jill Culiner is decidedly an atypical character. Her artistic production should be classified as one of public utility, for it signals danger. Endowed with a formidable acuity, she is a hyper receptive watchdog, an attentive and amused observer of our flaws, of our meandering, and she denounces the abusive influence of humans on their environment. Her boxes also warn us of the multiple assaults of normalization, and the leveling of thought through social and behavioral pressures. Despite the fragility of her testimony she remains faithful to her vocation. A complete artist, Jill Culiner is a humanist as well as an antidote to our collective suicide!

-Rémy Le Guillerm, Curator and Visual Artist



Putting society in boxes to better examine its shortcomings, mock its superficiality, and condemn its conformism — this is Jill Culiner's acerbic game. Laval is pleased to be associated with this excellent exhibition, for we pay tribute to one of the most endearing and original visual artists in our department.

 -Guillaume Garot, Deputy Mayor of Laval

- Emmanuel Doreau, Deputy Mayor, in charge of Culture and Heritage