“There are creatures that seem to emerge not from imagination, but from the depths of a forgotten past.”

As though they had long been waiting beneath the surface of the waters, buried within the memory of myths, until a sculptor’s hand finally allowed them to emerge.

With this new life-size mermaid sculpture, Quebec sculptor Jean Pronovost gives form to a presence that is both ancient and unsettling: a mermaid born between river and sea, between legend and matter. Created in bronze, resin, fiberglass, and steel, this contemporary sculpture stands as a silent apparition where the human figure becomes the site of metamorphosis.

Inspired both by Iara — the mysterious Mãe das Águas of Brazilian legends — and by Homer’s Sirens in The Odyssey, the artwork brings together two great mythologies of water, core element of creation myths. The mythology of the river, tied to secrecy, seduction, and transformation, meets that of the sea, of seductive song and forbidden knowledge.

But in this contemporary sculptural interpretation, the myth shifts.

Ulysses does not survive.

The man who once resisted the Sirens’ song by having himself tied to the mast of his ship now appears defeated. At the rear of the sculpture, his body lies captive against the axis of the mast — a symbol of the mind, human will, and reason itself. Crabs have claimed his remains, weaving themselves as well into the mermaid’s flowing hair, scattered with shells and traces of the sea.

Around them lie the remnants of the shipwreck swallowed by the depths. Two broken amphorae, once filled with wine, rest among endangered corals and fragments of the shattered hull. The sea is no longer a mere mythological setting: it becomes memory, ruin, and warning.

The mermaid herself leans against the mast as though she now reigns over what human reason once believed it could control.

This new sculptural interpretation of the mermaid is also deeply inspired by the legend of Iara, the Mãe das Águas of Brazil. Through several journeys into the Brazilian Amazon, Jean Pronovost encountered these stories as they were shared by Indigenous communities, fishermen,and the pajés encountered hundreds of leagues from Manaus, in the state of Acre near the Envira River, and deep within the jungles of Peru and Colombia. Everywhere, the same stories resurfaced in different forms, spoken of not as distant folklore, but as a reality still present today — alive within memory, belief, and the deep waters of the Amazon itself. This closeness to Amazonian mythology imbues the sculpture with a more organic, spiritual, and haunting dimension, where the boundary between myth and reality seems to dissolve.

Within this figurative sculpture, song becomes silence. The movement of water transforms into curves, tensions, and sculpted volumes. The sculpted resin creates a surface that feels almost organic and sensitive to light, while fiberglass lends an apparent lightness to this otherwise imposing presence. Beneath the surface, steel functions as a hidden skeletal structure, maintaining the fragile balance between strength and vulnerability.

The outer finish is crafted in real bronze using a technique developed by the artist. This process gives the sculpture a dense, living skin traversed by oxidized nuances reminiscent of ocean depths. Its distinctive patina emerges from a meticulous combination of chemical reactions, acids, and multiple layers of painted glazes. From this meeting of matter, sculpture, and painterly gesture arises an almost aquatic surface where every reflection seems to carry the memory of myth.