Monique Daneau’s acrylic and mixed media on canvas paintings have a jagged, abstracted quality which combines tantalizingly with her opulent treatment of color. Working in quick, intuitive strokes, Daneau is able to invest the paint with a unique vitality. Drastic change in hue or texture gives the feeling of movement and immediacy, making each piece an emotional journey alternating between somber and vibrant colors with the ambiance of sculptural impressionism. Daneau’s creative affluence pours over and initiates the viewer into the artist’s exalted states. Blending, scraping and layering techniques appear, exploring a seemingly infinite palette. Forms jag or glide across the composition in a poignant, lawless dance with figure and ground. Large in scale and colossal in impression, these ecstatic renditions of abstract exploration are situated in the border territory between chaos and order, minimalist and extremist, the base and the holy.
Based in St-Bruno-de-Montarville, Monique Daneau has exhibited her work throughout Canada and abroad and continues to have international success.
At first, oils enabled me to express my innermost emotions and change the world around me. Then I rediscovered colors, and everything transformed overnight into an infinite palette of shadows and light. Then, during an artistic retreat to the Magdalena Islands, I experimented with acrylics and other tools. My art took on a new, abstract dimension which became my passion. The islands’ beauty, scenery and ruggedness inspired me. Vibrant colors and spontaneous strokes express my deepest thoughts and emotions in each new piece I create. I have a great ability to inspire confidence in others, and I create to free myself of the countless secrets, hopes and fears entrusted to me daily. I listen and observe by day and let everything out by night when emotions spill out, unplanned, onto the canvas. Each creation is a pure moment of meditation, as I live simply in the present moment.
