MADY AND THE SEA

by
Marissa de Consiglieri de Chackal

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Mady (Marie Bourdage) was born in Bonaventure, Quebec, in 1966. Her paintings have been exhibited in Canada, the United States, Germany, Spain and Russia and are part of many prestigious public collections: Loto Quebec (Canada) and Rebman (Spain). In 1989, Mady was awarded the Gold Medal in the Great Canadian Contest of Visual Arts and in 2004, the GRAFIKA Prize. Her latest work is on exhibit in New York ( Objects & Images Fine Art ) and Montreal (Galerie d'Arts Contemporains).

 

Mady (Marie Bourdage) is an artist who handles her craft with intelligence and great sensitivity.

Water seems to have the same hypnotic effect on the painter that it has on me. The great difference is that I translate my fascination into dreams while Mady translates hers into magnificent works of art that beguile the viewer with their vastness, depth and wonderfully nuanced color and light.

Mady, Bonaventure Est, oil on canvas, 40 x 60 inches.

Mady’s seascapes and marine mammals are as spellbinding as the real thing, capable of evoking sensations long dormant. Gazing at her work, I was transported to another place: I could feel a cool breeze and smell the ocean and I could enter this state of deep peace and relaxation that I always enter when in front of the ocean. But enough about me . . .

Mady, La Baleine rose, oil on canvas, 31 x 44 inches.

Mady’s approach to painting may explain the effects.

As the artist describes it, each trace left by the brush represents the segment of an idea being developed. Following a continuous line -- starting from a point, without interference or distraction -- makes possible the interpretation, through form, of “the invisible existence of a dual reality”; this duality is defined by the artist’s intuition. Between perception and interpretation there is a gap and it is within this gap that her brush “tries to establish certain links by connecting one point to the next” following an instinctive and natural progression. Thus, she creates a visual system, an organized data base that has been informed by both the intellect and gut. The finished image is an amalgam of references derived from various timeless emotional memories assembled, reorganized and recorded on new space, that of a blank canvas. Even the most minimal trace becomes part of the whole process from the first initial mark on the canvas.

 

Mady, Les civilizations, oil on canvas, 40 x 60 inches.

When confronted with Mady’s creations, the viewer may not be able to uncover all the intellectual and emotional facets inherent in the painter’s creative process but will certainly be prompted unconsciously to explore his own.

The artist states that when the final trace of the brush appears, she has in front of her eyes “a canalized emotional charge. A pictorial organization of harmoniously coiled overlapping raw and rational emotion: the latter borne from the satisfaction of having made a success of something.” And successes they are!

Mady, Mer d’automne, oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches.

Mady is commanding a great deal of attention these days and deservedly so. Lotto Quebec recently acquired not one but two of her works and there is an up-coming article about the artist and her work in the spring issue of Vie des Arts .

The work of Mady is on permanent exhibition at her studio, 3831-A rue St-Dominique in Montreal (514-844-3440). To contact the artist, write to Arts Editor, Marissa Consiglieri de Chackal at: arts@artsandopinion.com