Martin Bureau uses the mediums of painting, video installation, and documentary film to examine the intersection of art and politics. Inspired by world events, his work offers a candid and critical statement on the social, economic, and cultural issues that surround us.
Bureau’s pictorial work, inspired by painting achievements in art history, is based on powerful images encountered during his extensive travels (to Cuba, China, Israel, Ireland, and Palestine, among others). In his compositions combining drawing, painting, drawing, and transparency, extremes meet and evoke a sense of tension where aesthetic and conceptual concerns clash. Notions of colonialism, catastrophe, and entropy are recurring themes in his body of work.
Bureau’s works have been exhibited in both public and private collections, including those of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Santiago Museum of Contemporary Art (Chile), MAC VAL Museum (Paris), the World Expo in Shanghai (China), the Lacerte Gallery, L’Œil de poisson, as well as in Toronto at the Nicholas Metivier, Lonsdale, and Drabinsky galleries.
His documentary films have achieved international renown, winning awards at prestigious festivals in Toronto (Hot Docs), Saguenay (Regard), Quebec City (FCVQ), Montreal (RVCQ), London (Raindance), Vancouver (VLAFF), Chicago (CFF), Louisiana (Cinema on the Bayou), and Cannes (Short Film Corner).
His work is collected by:
Musée National des Beaux-arts du Québec, CPOA
Musée du Bas-Saint-Laurent
Musée d’art contemporain de Baie-Saint-Paul
Desjardins Collection
The National Assembly of Quebec
Library and Archives Canada
Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec
Loto-Québec
SSQ Financial Group
The Canadian Institue of Quebec
Collection SAJO
The City of Montreal
The City of Quebec
Migros Klubschule
Bâle Suisse
Summit Maritime
Greenfield Partners LTD
South Norwalk
Méduse Collection
And several corporate and private collections in Canada, the United States and Europe
