Marie-Danielle Duval | Monstresse

Exhibition: March 1 to April 6, 2024
Vernissage and artist-guided gallery tour:  February 29 at 6 pm
Art Hive with the artist ‘Making Fiction Real’: April 6 from 10:30 am to 1 pm

In this exhibition Montreal-based artist Marie-Danielle Duval presents a series of paintings that explore the concept of monstrosity as a method to analyze perceptions of identity. Deconstructing a default tendency to make a monster out of the other, here the figure of the monster manifests itself as a limitlessness figure.

Imposing and fragile, disquieting and inviting, monstrous and marvelous, the works feature larger-than-life Black female figures in surrealist spaces suggesting an atmosphere of tension. Drawing inspiration from several literary works relating to identity and the notion of the monster, the project establishes a dialogue between literature and the visual arts. Through key moments transposed into painting, the series examines sensitive questions about identity through singular visual narratives. The paintings embody a sociological imaginary via the artist’s own story and artistic path, eliciting a reading of empathy and introspection.

Marie-Danielle Duval is a Senegalese-Quebecoise visual artist based in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts from UQAM (2021) and is currently pursuing a MFA at Concordia University.

Her work has been featured in several exhibitions, including Artch (2021), Rad Hourani (2021), Galerie de l’UQAM (2020, 2022), and Art Mûr (2022). In 2023, she began an artist residency with Hugues Charbonneau (Atelier 43).  Her projects have been supported by several grants, including the Canada Council for the Arts (2022) and the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Award (2023). She had her first solo exhibitions at Centre d’artistes Caravansérail in 2023.

Through the lens of her diasporic experience, Marie-Danielle draws on literature and oral tradition to bring to life fictional figures whose stories reflect untold realities. Her narrative paintings generally feature a protagonist who seems alone, but who is inviting us to start a dialogue. Thus, by raising questions of identity, her work explores the power of storytelling to generate social change.

www.mdanielleduval.com

McClure Gallery thanks the Conseil des arts de Montréal for its financial support.