About the artist

Originally from Haiti, Marie-Denise Douyon is a citizen of the world. She grew up in North Africa, studied in New York and Washington and now lives in Montreal. With a fine arts degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology of New York, she returned to Haiti in the 1980s, then emigrated to Canada as a political refugee in 1991.

This peripatetic lifestyle is reflected in her paintings, in which dislocation is a common theme. To contemplate a piece by Douyon is to become more aware of the mixture of African and Creole cultures within the context of contemporary art. Douyon also expresses her concern about our culture of overconsumption by using found and discarded materials in her work.

Douyon’s art has been exhibited in many cities, including Montreal, Vancouver, Port-au-Prince, Washington, Dakar and Paris. She also had the privilege of showing her work at the Bardo National Museum in Tunis, Tunisia, at a group show of Canadian and Tunisian artists.