PERMANENT COLLECTION

FRANCINE GRAVEL

NATIONALITY: Canadian

DATES: b. 1944

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Francine Gravel was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec where she attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, studying under Albert Dumouchel. She later pursued post-graduate studies in Belgium at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and at the University of Calgary (Alberta). In 1967 she had her first exhibition of etchings and engravings, an exhibit that launched a career that has continued to grow ever since. In 1980, after a long quest, she discovered the personal style that identifies her as a painter, and she has never looked back. She now enjoys an international reputation and has collectors throughout the world. She exhibits in numerous galleries throughout Canada where she is frequently featured in one-woman shows.

As art critic Roger Geerts has observed, "Francine Gravel's work is full of imagination and fantasy. We can feel in it the life of a world not quite our own, a world uplifted. At times the figures give the impression of being more or less absent. They bathe in an atmosphere of magic realism or fantasy. The artist knows how to interpret dreams with a very personal touch. `A dream is a painter,' to quote a famous Belgian author. And this is precisely what is reflected in Francine Gravel's work."

Artist Statement

"It all comes as I let the lines, textures and layers of colour flow on the canvas, 
This process transforms the blank space into dreams that I can share.

I hope my work will help people travel to their inner-selves to find
In this Sacred place Peace, Beauty, Love and Music and that these things inspire them."

WORKS BY ARTIST