Generational Rapprochement: Huntington Disease, Renée A. Bouffard-McManus
A set of two rectangle shaped paper collages on black paper by artist Renée Anne Bouffard-McManus. The work on the right uses eleven cut swirling blue watercolour squares arranged in descending order, the spaces allow the black of the paper to create eight horizontal, repeating, and descending rectangles and two squares. The work on the left uses the same swirling blue watercolour squares but with a total ten. The blue squares are shifted more to the right and in a different pattern, the spaces allow the black of the paper to create ten vertical rectangles of varying sizes.
Title: Generational Rapprochement: Huntington Disease
Artist: Renée A. Bouffard-McManus
Date: 2026
Medium/Materials: Watercolour, paper
Dimensions: 2 pieces, 29.7 cm x 42.0 cm each
Form/Genre: Collage
Key Terms/Subject/Tags: Intergenerational; Healing; Chronic illness
Artist Statement:
This set of collages are an exploration of rapprochement, specifically how connection and separation is expressed within Bouffard-McManus’ own and her family of origins’ lived experience with illness and caregiving inside the Huntington Disease (HD) community. HD has been the heritage of the maternal side of her family for as far back as they can trace, up to 5 generations. The blue paint pulls from Bouffard-McManus’ memory of jumping in deep water as a toddler and the overwhelm, disorientation, and fear that followed. Similarly, the transgenerational trauma of parental illness and death and the responsibility of caregiving leaves HD families uniquely devastated and overburdened to navigate the systems and structures of healthcare. Cutting up, repurposing, and rearranging her past watercolours mimics the shifting and adapting that ensues and reclaims these health stories and the impact they have on the journey of her family of origin, despite the fact that neither her mother nor Bouffard-McManus have HD. Salt was used in the watercolour technique as a nod to themes of healing. The squares and black spaces pull from the visuals of familial quilting and DNA sequencing. In 2023, she became a caregiver for her cousin with HD. Her mother was a caregiver to his mother (Bouffard-McManus’ aunt) and also to her own mother (Bouffard-McManus’ grandmother) who both died of HD.
Huntington Disease (HD) is a genetically inherited, fatal neurodegenerative disease that causes physical, cognitive, and emotional symptoms. There is no cure. For more information: https://www.huntingtonsociety.ca/
Cultural Context / Story Behind the Work:
This work reflects on bridging the knowledge gained through Bouffard-McManus’ MFA (2025) to produce artwork about her own and her family of origins’ lived experience with caregiving inside the Huntington Disease (HD) community. In 2023, she became a caregiver for her cousin who has HD and lives in the Ottawa area. This collage was made while working with Ontario Health at Home to try to move him to a Long Term Care Home closer to her in Toronto.
Rights for this Image:
This digital image is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0. You are free to share it for non-commercial purposes, as long as you credit the artist.
Learn More:
Instagram: @artbyreneeanne