MARIE-DENISE DOUYON,
MALLORY LOWE MPOKA
Lumière (Echo Art series), 2010
MARIE-DENISE DOUYON
Mixed media and oil on wood panel (reproduction), 24 x 18 "
Threads Unravelling, 2020
MALLORY LOWE MPOKA
Inkjet print on Hahnemühle photo rag paper (reproduction), 33 x 24 "
CURATOR’S TEXT
At first glance, it's the multidisciplinarity of their artistic practices (photography, collage, natural dyeing) that seems to unite Haitian artist Marie-Denise Douyon and Cameroonian-Belgian artist Mallory Lowe Mpoka. And yet, the more time we spend with their work, the more the themes of their diasporic realities and black cultural heritages are confirmed as central to their work.
Marie-Denise Douyon's Lumière is aptly named, with its mysterious luminosity emanating from a sumptuous wooden panel made of recycled mixed materials and oil paint. Marie-Denise transports us into her unique imaginary world, where ancestral memories and gentleness come together. The artist invites us to follow her phantasmagorical journey, rooted in the affection for self-reinvention through free creation. It is with this freedom that Marie-Denise breathes fresh life into what has been described as a sanctuary, the inner house.
Sanctuaries are at the heart of Mallory Lowe Mpoka's artistic practice, a subject also found in her work Threads Unravelling, part of the photographic series What is this home that is home that is not home (2020). Seated on Verdun beach, the two black people in this photograph are embracing in red clay. The red clay refers to Mallory's father's homeland, Cameroon, where red clay is a predominant material. This intimate moment shared between the two protagonists forms a small sanctuary of affection and questions our own conceptions of home.
Marie-Denise Douyon and Mallory Lowe Mpoka offer us reflections on the ancestral memories of black diasporas and nomadism that transcend invisible borders.
Photo: Felix Herrera
MARIE-DENISE DOUYON - BIOGRAPHY
(she)
Originally from Haiti, Marie-Denise Douyon is an artist whose career is marked by nomadism. She grew up in North Africa, studied in New York and Washington and now lives in Montreal. After graduating from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, she emigrated to Canada as a political refugee in 1991. This journey marked by exile has led this remarkable artist to create to recreate herself.
Resilience and optimism are at the heart of the message of hope that artist Marie-Denise Douyon wishes to instill.
"Wanting to reinvent oneself is a passage that many people go through...
We all migrate internally, the journey of a life is an unceasing journey marked by challenges of reconstruction, of reinvention of oneself."
Marie-Denise Douyon's work reveals a mixed identity that draws from the confluence of three cultures: her country of origin, Haiti, the country of her childhood, Morocco, and her adopted country, Quebec. A Montrealer who is very involved in the Montreal cultural scene, her recent works are part of a multidisciplinary dialogue, inspired by themes related to environmental issues and digital art. Recycling, photography, collage and digital editing fuel her creative process and reveal a contemporary narrative inspired by the Africa of her childhood, tinged with tenderness, depth, poetry and wonder.
Photo: Niloofar Taghipour @niiliin
MALLORY LOWE MPOKA - BIOGRAPHY
(she)
Mallory Lowe Mpoka is a Cameroonian Belgian visual artist who works between Tiohtiá:ke (montreal) and Douala. Her practice draws on archival photographs and personal experiences and examines how individuals navigate places, continually reconsidering the nature of identity and belonging. Her use of analog photographic processes, screen printing, embroidery and natural textile dyeing refers to a reality between many cultures, while contextualizing her work in a familiar environment. Her recent investigations question the notion of home as an (in)tangible place and the concept of migration through the prism of diasporic, transoceanic and post-colonial realities, while incorporating personal archives, heirlooms and self-portraits.
Mpoka was a Villa Lena Foundation artist-in-residence in 2021 and has been nominated as a finalist for the Access ART x Prize 2022-23 by Art x Lagos and Yinka Shonibare’s Foundation. She is also the winner of the Malick Sidibé prize by the Bamako Encounters – African Biennale of Photography, and the winner of the Royal Bank of Canada Future Launch Scholarship 2023. She has shown her work nationally and internationally at Atiss Dakar Gallery, 1-54 NYC, Art Toronto, Fofa Gallery, Centre Phi, Rad Hourani and Livart.