Pierre St-Jacques video work explores transcendent moments in everyday life and the expressed gestures that connect us. As these ordinary yet extraordinary moments transpire, a small door opens up into a larger new world that lets us glimpse what it means to be human.

St-Jacques’ current series of five video works, A Gathering of Shifts, investigates how a series of small gestures, like a dance between individuals, can lead one astray or bring people together. Subject to an invisible slope that gives the characters motion and intention, some of the characters are in full control of their environment, while others have let the sway and momentum consume them and have lost control. St-Jacques’ selection of gestures and themes come from past work where, often accidentally, the intentions of the characters would be hinted at, but not explored in depth.

These new works mark a departure for the artist and are more experimental, abstract and explorative. St-Jacques states: “I've found that there is no forcing what the piece will eventually become. What started as a concept then gets changed and altered by the process of making”. In many ways the themes explored in A Gathering of Shifts are also present in the making of the work.