Mélissa Primeau
My artistic practice is motivated by self-affirmation: the urgency to do so for women who have not been allowed to exist entirely, despite their strength of character. By, all the small or big injunctions to take place. I question this social oppression too often invisible vis-à-vis the status of women in our societies and in the history that we drag. I commit myself through my art, in a process of repair of my heritage, to prove my existence and those of the women of the past. To make my voice freer for all those who would have wanted it.
My works propose immersive pictorial places in large format where the lyrical interpretation of my abstraction is the symbol of a free and inclusive ideal world. Playing with the inexhaustible physical possibilities of painting, I seek movements that engender a captive state of mind. I create a kind of dance, between my mind and body, past and present, to paint the landscape of transit that exists between me and the women of my heritage. I paint meeting places. Safe spaces.
Born in 1992 in a suburb of the Montérégie, Mélissa Primeau moved to Montreal in 2011. Since then she lives and works in the metropolis. Coming from a multidisciplinary background always focused on sensitive creation, she completed her bachelor's degree in environmental design at Uqam in 2016. Then, she will accumulate work experiences in the workshops of decorations, fabrication of objects and conceptualization. In 2019 she will begin a certificate in creative writing at Uqam, to equip herself with the tools to represent her written thought in her creative practice.
August 5th, 2022
Emerging artist, Mélissa Primeau goes from Les encans de la quarantaine to L'artothèque and exhibits in several other places in Montreal. The public will be able to admire a mural she produced in Hochelaga in the following weeks.
In our interview, Mélissa talks about her influences and artistic approach.
Primeau reveals her passion for art and painting since her childhood, particularly by women who have had an impact on her practice. Hence the connection to textiles in her youth which led her to pursue a bachelor in Fashion Design to Environmental Design. Her creations explore the notion of space in a playful way. Mélissa has experimented, among other things, with the limits of the cotton canvas that returns to nature, sometimes by leaving it outside and interacting with the weather. Then, very recently, the theme around the dream and the phenomenon of phosphenes in its vaporous representation.
