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Paul Bureau’s work is an exploration of impasto with oil paint and color. He builds up layers of paint, overlapping and just positioning, while scraping and pushing the edges of excess paint to construct a pictorial plane on the surface. He uses these berms, or overflows, of excessive oil paint to compose his paintings, allowing the interlaying colors and contrasting forms to create a very charged visual space.

His work has a visual wow—he wants the viewer to be overwhelmed initially, but then, with time, to discover the subtlety within the visual plan. His paintings are accessible and challenging on many levels.

His colors are not from the tubes, but are all individually mixed and must dry before another layer is superimposed; he considers the viscosity of the oil paint to have a meditative quality.

Paul Bureau was born in Montreal, graduated from Concordia University in that city, in 1985, with a Master of Fine Arts. He lived, worked, and exhibited in Paris for ten years before returning to the capital of Quebec.

He has been awarded grants from the Conseil des Arts et Lettres du Quebec, the Canada Council for the Artists, and the Gutenberg Prize for the Bibliothèque Centrale de prêt de l’Estrie.

His paintings have been exhibited at the Gallery Trois Points, Thérèse Dion Art Contemporain, and the Maison de la culture Marie-Uguay, all in Montreal, as well as the Toronto International Art Fair, several galleries in France, and the Charest-Weinberg Gallery in Key West, Florida.

His work is included in the collections of AON, National Bank of Canada, Lavery, deBilly and Associates, Loto-Quebec, Computershare and Royal Bank of Canada.

View Paul Bureau's Work »

Bounded P
28" X 22"

Bounded Y
28" X 22"