Afrika Eco Art: Marie-Denise Douyon

Marie-Denise Douyon begins a life of migratory peregrinations growing up in North Africa, first in Algeria and then in Morocco. Her childhood experiences were like an arabesque, interlaced with distinctive confluent artistic idioms of the Maghreb and the Mediterranean, rendering an organic, multifaceted identity. From Africa, Douyon moved her permanent residence to Montreal, after an interim of a few years when she lived in Haiti. To anchor her multicultural identity, Douyon focuses her art on her African heritage.

The artist’s inspiration

Her inspiration plunges back in the homeland of the Haitian culture, the African kingdom. Combining her contemporary know how to her passion of recycling, the artist pays a tribute to the richness of the African traditional society and the greatness of its cultural heritage in danger of extinction. Furthermore, as a Quebec artist, her concerns for the socio-environmental disasters which threaten our planet have led Marie-Denise Douyon to create a series of works using recycled materials: old bike chains, metal pieces and computer parts. The artist tackles current issues such as the exodus of environmental refugees, the export of dangerous waste and the effects of green house gases, to question our conscience.

From lost objects, electric wires, pieces of computers and recycled small items, Marie-Denise Douyon using strips of linoleum, to make some engraving plates of abstract expression. She than covers these plates with inks, to create a series of monotypes, representing threadlike silhouettes, an abstraction of the Massai warriors. These slim pastel figurines seem to be chanting the hymns and the rhythms of ceremonies that mark initiatory rites.

Exhibitions

The artist has exhibited in Canada, in the United States, in Europe and in the Carribean. Her work has been shown at the UNESCO headquaters in Paris, at the IDB Cultural Center of the Inter American Development Bank in Washington, at the Black National Fine Art Show in New York. The Hammond’s Museum and in several galleries and cultural centers in Montreal. Douyon’s art can be found in private collections in Montreal, Miami, New York, Chicago, the Indian Ocean and the Carribean. Her work has been featured in numerous publications.