Manuel Mathieu
b. 1986, Haiti
Manuel Mathieu (b. 1986) is a multidisciplinary artist, working with painting, drawing, ceramics, and installation. His work investigates themes of historical violence, erasure and cultural approaches to physicality, nature, and spiritual legacy. Mathieu’s interests are partially informed by his upbringing in Haiti, and his experience emigrating to Montréal at the age of 19. Freely operating in between and borrowing from numerous historical influences and traditions, Mathieu aims to find meaning through a spiritual or asemic mode of apparition.
Mathieu has developed a distinctive abstract visual language, used to create phenomenological encounters that confront our didactic traditions. Amorphous forms vacillate and dissolve into one another, creating boundless landscapes traversable through desire. Through his quest for meaning, transparency and openness he undertakes a process of discovering his work, as opposed to creating it; by doing so the work holds its autonomy and can be assimilated into a space of collective consciousness. The vibrational effect of his work elicits physical and emotional frequencies that offer alternative methods for navigating the world.
Manuel’s work is held in several prestigious collections, including the Beth DeWoody Collection, the Joyner Giuffrida Collection, the Montréal Museum of Contemporary Art, the Montréal Museum of Fine Art, the National Gallery of Canada, Pérez Art Museum, the Rennie Collection, and the Rubell Family Collection.