Gabrielle de Montmollin was born in Toronto of Swiss parents. From 1979 to 1986 she worked in television at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and pursued an interest in independent film-making.

In 1986 she decided to focus on her long-standing interest in photography and took courses at Ryerson Polytechnic Institute and the Ontario College of Art, specializing in black and white photography. Since then she has exhibited in solo and group shows in Canada and France.

In her artist statement she writes "From the time I first found my own voice as an artist I have mostly used plastic toys and dolls in staged settings to create tableaux vivants in which I seek my own meanings and invite the viewer to find his or her own. My art is based on imagination and I am interested in story-telling, play and mystery.

At first I 'played' with toy soldiers, farm animals and rubber babies, then I moved on to Barbie dolls which I would buy battered and chewed on in thrift stores. Eventually I made masks for the Barbies, transforming them into secret individuals acting out their own enigmatic stories (a selection of photographs from the series Not A Child's World, The fruit and vegetable series, The meticulous construction of the tranquil life of Amazons, Leading Ladies and Carnevale at the Hotel of the Bridge of Sighs can be viewed at http://www.artishell.com).

In my most recent work Train Times Is Any Time, I am using primitive manipulation and photomontage techniques ­ reverse prints, photocopies and paper negatives ­ as well as an appealing new company of 'actors' that I call mutants (created by rearranging heads and bodies of dolls that were pretty strange to begin with). This is a work in progress ­ the beginning of an exploration into new imaginative worlds."