Appearances Acrylic on Canvas 30” x 30”
Esprit Libre Acrylic on Canvas 36” x 36”
Monique Daneau’s meditative paintings reflect an inner landscape as well as an outer one. Daneau paints the terrain as if it were simply a series of horizons. She often paints bodies of water with a focus on the beautiful, small complexities that occur where the sea meets the sky – with practically nothing else included in the frame. She is spare where she wants to be and detailed within a precise sphere of focus. The effect is airy and modern and reduces the vast ocean to a handful of horizontal dashes. More unusually, she depicts the land in the same expansive yet streamlined style, as if rolling hills were the same thing as rolling waves. Daneau reaches for the similarities in the open skies over villages, mountains, and seas alike, teaching viewers to open their eyes to space in a different way.
Daneau’s abstract work is marked with this same talent for finding freedom in unexpected places. She uses the same mark-making techniques, but with a looser motion. Unbounded by representation, she employs a more experimental eye toward composition. She works in both acrylic and mixed media on various surfaces, such as wood or canvas. And just as often as she creates pieces using her signature brushstrokes, she breaks out of the box and builds images out of scribbles, geometric shapes, and rough collections of texture. With a strained, deliberate palette and an embrace of spontaneity, Daneau’s abstract work represents a refined subgenre that is hard to find.
Daneau is a Canadian artist who has exhibited widely in her home country, as well as in Japan, UK, Singapore, Belgium, and India. Her work has also been reviewed in several prestigious art journals throughout the years.