Featured Artist Dominique Normand

Canadian artist Dominique Normand presents a portfolio filled with compelling images of native culture. See more of her work by visiting her website.

 

 

Born into a family of artists in Lac Beauport, Quebec, Dominique Normand worked for seventeen years in post production as a graphic designer and animator. She created movie openings, ads, packaging for broadcast, and special FX.

 

 

From this period comes her interest in native culture and the desire to integrate it into her art. More and more she travels north of the 45th parallel and captures, in painting and in film, her unique vision of the people, the landscapes and traditional activities she witnesses.

 

 

Her talent as a communicator allows her to share her passion and vision in a powerful way. Her strong visceral bond with the Native Culture has led her to inquire and research through her roots on her father’s side.

 

 

The region of Montmagny was a frequent passage for the Nomadic Malicet Natives of Eastern Quebec and New Brunswick. In 2012, she found out she is Metis of Maliseet descent.

 

 

Thirteen years ago, she decided to trade her computer for brushes and has since been living from her art while raising three children on four acres of forest in the Laurentians. She needs to be in the woods where the wild things are. In nature, she comes alive. Her paintings are fragments of her story and the worlds she visits in a passionate manner.

 

 

Travel after travel, her discoveries and experiences led to her transformation as a painter of the Spirit of the North. In Northern Quebec, the animal kingdom is omnipresent and intimately entwined with the Native Culture and lifestyle.

 

 

For a minimum of 3 months a year, Dominique is immersed in Cree traditions, everyday activities such as tool making, medicinal plants, bush living, tanning, crafts, cooking, sewing. Fishing, hunting, and trapping are a constant conversation, practice and concern and Dominique has learned.

 

 

She celebrates the beauty of Canadian Wilderness. Her paintings speak a vibrant language and draw attention to the sacred gifts of life. Instinctively, she creates her own transforming path as a practice in living her intentions, a deep knowing of the soul leading the way.

 

 

She is currently working on a series of 12 paintings honoring Cree women she has met in the past few years. She is also preparing to take part in the Mistissini 2014 Journey of Wellness, a month long snowshoe trek on Cree Trapping and Hunting grounds. She has been invited to film the event. A painting series will follow as well.

 

 Dominique Normand invites you to follow her on Facebook, Behance and Flickr, and subscribe to her blog.