iconTechnique Mixte
Dominique Payette began her career as a classical dancer, then she founded the children's publishing house Dominique et Compagnie with which she won numerous awards including, four times, the Governor General's Award. Her career as a visual artist was launched with a bachelor's degree in art history. Subsequently, various classes encouraged her technical learning. Drawing classes taken at Saidye Bronfman and creative workshops with Seymour Segal greatly contributed to the evolution of her creative path. Her works have been the subject of several group exhibitions, notably Les Femmeuses at Pratt & Whitney in 2005. On this occasion, Loto-Québec acquired one of her paintings. In 2006, Dominique Payette presented her first solo exhibition in Montreal, entitled Part de jeux, Part de vie, at Galerie Le 1040. Then, in New York, her series of paintings entitled Présence was exhibited at Agora Gallery in October 2009. June 2010, she was invited by the Nelligan hotel to create a new production of 15 paintings as part of the exhibition Nelligan seen by... This event was noticed by collectors and connoisseurs.
“ The work of Dominique Payette is part of a contemporary artistic approach imbued with a constant inner quest. Her creation leads her to deepen a dialogue between the soul, the gesture and the canvas. This search for the meditative state allows her to explore the universality of feelings. The emotion is placed on the canvas directly with the fingers, and the body participates entirely in the work of expression. The diversity of mediums used is for her a pretext allowing her to multiply the pictorial language. A lover of the material, she seeks the spontaneity of gesture in order to think outside the box and give voice to the rebellious woman who lives within her.
Intimate, Dominique Payette's painting is not, however, a withdrawal into oneself, even if the exchanges do not take place around the banalities of life and the lightness of everyday life. The subject is dense, at least we can guess it by the rough appearance of the shapes and perhaps also by the palette made up of contrasting tones. As a statement, we sense being in the process of becoming or in union between beings, but not without questioning or pain . »
-Robert Bernier (Quebec art diary 2009, Utilis, Michel-Ange Gallery)