Marie-Denise Douyon (born 1961 in

Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince ( , ; ht, Pòtoprens ) is the capital and most populous city of Haiti. The city's population was estimated at 987,311 in 2015 with the metropolitan area estimated at a population of 2,618,894. The metropolitan area is define ...

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

) is a Canadian

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicat ...

and

graphic artist A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography, or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, p ...

. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in Canada, the U.S., Europe and Africa.

Life

Douyon was born in Haiti in 1961. She fled the

Duvalier regime The Duvalier dynasty (french: Dynastie des Duvalier, ht, Dinasti Duvalier) was an autocratic family dictatorship in Haiti that lasted almost twenty-nine years, from 1957 until 1986, spanning the rule of the father-and-son duo François and Jean ...

with her parents in 1964, and eventually settled in Morocco in 1966.Short Bio on the visual artist Marie-Denise Douyon
She completed a visual arts degree at the Fashion Institute of Technology of New York in Manhattan, New York City. After Jean-Claude Duvalier fell from power in 1986, Douyon returned to Haiti. In the early 1990s, she was arrested, tortured and imprisoned by Haiti's military junta, but was released on February 7, 1991 as part of a

general amnesty Amnesty (from the Ancient Greek ἀμνηστία, ''amnestia'', "forgetfulness, passing over") is defined as "A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power offic ...

of Haitian political prisoners.Marie-Denise Douyon
Passages Canada Since 1991, Douyon has lived and worked in Montreal, Quebec.

Career

Douyon's work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in Canada, France, the United States and in the Caribbean. In 2004, her work was shown at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Douyon integrates found and discarded objects into her art to "reinforce a social collective consciousness" regarding global warming and consumer culture. Her work also references her multicultural identity and African heritage.

Solo exhibitions

*Verdun Cultural Center L'Art à Palabres, (Montreal, 2005) *Galerie "Aux Trois Mailletz", L'Art à palâbres (Paris, 2003) *Galerie "Aux Trois Mailletz", L'Art à palâbres (Paris, 2002) *Maison de la culture Rivière-des-prairies (Montreal, 2002) *Festival International de la poésie Galerie Nationale de Dakar (Dakar, 2000) *Château Morange (Saint-Denis, Réunion, 2000) *Festival d'été de Vancouver (Vancouver, 1998) *Galerie d'art d'Outremont (Montreal, 1998) *Galerie Céline Allard (Toronto, 1996)Exhibitions
, marie-denisedouyon.net

Group exhibitions

*Black National Fine Art Show, Gallery Bourbon-Lally (Pétion-Ville, Haiti, 2005) *Inter American Development Bank (Washington, DC, 2004) *L'Art à Palabres, UNESCO Head Office (Paris, 2004) *Musée du Panthéon National Haïtien (Port-au-Prince, 1999)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Douyon, Marie-Denise Canadian women painters Haitian emigrants to Canada Haitian painters Fashion Institute of Technology alumni Living people 1961 births Canadian illustrators Canadian graphic artists Canadian graphic designers Canadian women illustrators Haitian women illustrators Haitian graphic designers Haitian women painters 21st-century Canadian women artists Canadian women graphic designers Black Canadian women