Marc Garneau

Waddington's Auction House Biography and Notes

Born 1956 in Thetford Mines, Québec, Marc Garneau grew up around industry. As a result of this early environmental influence, we see a grainy, mineral character in much of his work. The Québecois artist's fascination with the role of the viewer, and the viewer's relationship with his paintings, are also a prominent components of his work: "The transparencies of being, of living the moment and the pigments all become one," Garneau stated during his 1982 exhibition Du Silence des Yeux, "For this reason, the act of seeing becomes the true subject." Garneau's canvases can be seen as a place for experimentation and exploration as he is never bound to using a single medium in his art; "various coloured surfaces, fragments of past paintings, pieces of burnt wood, and found objects that have been incised, gouged, or layered...," are but a few of the materials found in his work, demonstrating a literal incorporation of urban and rural environments. Garneau graduated from Concordia University with an MFA in Visual Art in 1984, and received the Grand Prix de la Biennale for his drawings, prints, and other paper work in 1997. He has shown in over fifty solo exhibitions, and his art can be found throughout Canada and globally in Austria, Germany, France, Holland, Mexico, and Japan. He continues to work in Montreal.