Hot Stuff, Circa 2025

Renée Duval  

Renée Duval lives and works in Vancouver, British Columbia, she graduated with Honors from Emily Carr College of Art (1986) and completed an M.F.A. at Corcordia University in Montreal. (1991) Her work has been exhibited across Canada and she has participated in exhibitions in the United States, France and Mexico. Her work can be found in numerous public as well as private collections and she has received several grants from both the Canada Council for the Arts as well as the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Quebec. Renée’s work was included in the Canadian painting survey publications Carte Blanche Vol 2- Painting (2008) and The RBC Painting Competition:10 years (2008). A catalogue of her work entitled Gods and Monsters was published in 2014. Renee spent 24 years as the Director of Exhibitions at the McClure Gallery in Montreal and spent over 30 years teaching and mentoring artists.

What has been persistent in all my work, is my endeavour to impart a sense of presence and personification/embodiment to my depictions of various kinds of botanical growth (trees, vines, flowers). In some paintings, this took the form of symmetrical trees. In other paintings, it manifested as botanical configurations resembling human heads and faces. In those paintings, I used the conventions of portraiture as a way to underscore what I feel are the ineffable but singular qualities embodied in every living thing.