Artist statement
After a decade of pastel portrait drawing, Marie Plante adopted the acrylic medium for more creative freedom. The drawing, the gesture and the colours remain the mainstays in her work but they now travel the canvas, they drag, follow, and jostle each other.
Her artist approach grew away from both the observational drawing and the hyper-realist detail to trigger the interpretation of the subject. Her personal interpretation is an invitation to joy and serenity; it is an expression of her art, which is intended to comfort and soothe whoever observes her work.
Marie likes to explore colours; she is particularly fascinated by vibrating colors that reflect life. The primary and secondary colors which reveal the brightest pigments can frequently be found in her creations. She works the gesture either by drawing curves, sweeping her paintbrush, or gliding her palette knife. The creative process continues by delicately applying string gel colours to highlight some details and to define her subject. She spontaneously uses the gold colour for its light reflections and this feature often takes part in her paintings. After having mainly worked on small and medium canvas, she now indulges in larger formats. She must face the “blank canvas” again, but the drawing, the gesture and colours guide her and compose the Marie Plante signature!
She now paints in a somehow abstract and figurative style, but in a style that is still very contemporary. Her inspiration comes from the nature: the river, shores, birds, plants… as well as urban nature.
CV
Galleries
2017 Galerie d'art Chez l'Artiste, 84 1/2 rue Petit-Champlain, Quebec city
2017 Galerie Zen, 1139 rue St-jean, Quebec city
2016 Nob Hill Art Gallery - July to October
2016 Galerie Zen - May, September to December
2015-2016 OFF Galerie, partner artist
Virtual Galleries
Solo exhibitions
2013 Solo exhibition "Persona…Grata" 4th enriched edition, Le Tournesol library, Quebec
2013 Solo exhibition "Pastel drawing portraits", Les Fistons restaurant, Quebec
2010 Solo exhibition "Persona Grata…A face is worth a thousand words"
2nd edition, Alain-Grandbois library, Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures
2010 Solo exhibition "Persona Grata…a face is worth a thousand words"
3rd edition, Roger Lemelin library, Cap-Rouge
2009 Solo exhibition "Persona Grata…a face is worth a thousand words", Maison Magella Paradis Art Gallery, Trait-Carré, Charlesbourg
2001 Solo exhibition "Augustin geese", Alain Grandbois library, St-Augustin-de- Desmaures
Group exhibitions
Pastel Society of Eastern Canada: Ogilvy’s exhibition room and Galerie Richelieu, Montreal; Grand Théâtre de Québec
Le groupe des Pastellistes du jeudi : Noël-Brulart community center, Bagel traditionnel restaurant and Les Fistons restaurant, Quebec City; Maison de la culture de l’Ancienne Lorette
Association culturelle de Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures : Maison de la culture, Maison Thibault-Soulard and Alain-Grandbois library, Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures
Société des arts de l’Ancienne Lorette
Société artistique et culturelle de Québec, Quebec City Library Network
Symposiums
2017 Bienvenue en ville, Quebec City, February 2-3
2017 Rendez-vous Art Contemporain, May 21-22
2017 Decouvrarts, June 3-4
2017 Visit'Arts-Québec June 17-18
2017 Symposium de Kamouraska July19-24
2017 Symposium Arts et Reflets August 11-13
2017 Symposium Plaines en couleurs August 25-27
2017 Symposium Victo et ses oies, à venir October 28-29
Professionnal Associations
Marie Plante has been a signature member of the Pastel Society of Eastern Canada (PSEC) since 2014.
She is a member of the Regroupement des artistes en art visuel du Québec (RAAVQ), the Société artistique et culturelle de Québec (SACQ) and the Association culturelle de St-Augustin-de-Desmaures (ACSAD).
Since September 2016, she has been on the board of administrators of the Société artistique et culturelle de Québec (SACQ).
Marie Plante, a native of Quebec City, has studied and worked as a child and adolescent psychiatrist, but her passion for arts has followed her throughout her career. Over the years, her natural gift for drawing, painting, and arts in general has led her to learn how to use multiple art media. In the 2000s, her artistic career became more defined and she started exhibiting her work.
Pastel period
Along the St. Laurence River, she observes Canada geese. These magnificent birds are her inspiration for twenty pastel drawings for a first solo exhibition "Augustin Geese" in 2001. Her strong interest in the human being leads her to choose this medium known for its subtlety in portraiture. The dry pastel portrait workshop sessions she attends, run by pastellists and painters Francine Gauthier, Cathia Hamel, Denis Jacques, Fleurette Sauvageau, and Isabelle Hêtu, complete her drawing and dry pastel portrait training.
Her passion for portraits conditions her production. When she paints portraits, she feels like she is meeting with her subject and trying to understand his personality, his emotions, his joys and pains. Pastel drawing enables her painting style to be either gestural or nuanced and it necessarily involves the integration of the mind, perception, emotion, and movement.
Acrylic period
In recent years, she has been focusing on her painting. Her production pace has increased, since she has more time to explore visual arts and creativity. In 2010, she has adopted acrylic painting and since 2014, her acrylic painting production has become more important and has reached maturity. Here again, this medium allows her style to be either gestural or nuanced, and both the use of the paint brush and the palette knife offer that possibility. Colors are predominant in her work, whether she uses a bright color spectrum or a rather limited one.