Biography

Josée Duranleau is a self-taught mixed media artist. She was born in Montreal and moved to Toronto at the age of 9. She studied classical flute in her youth and continued her studies at the University of Toronto, after which time she performed in a flute and guitar duo for several years. In 1999 Josée switched gears and joined Samba Squad, a World Music percussion group, where she played the tamborim for 10 glorious years. Since 1997 she has run her own public relations company, Duranleau Communications, specializing in arts publicity.

Josée has loved all forms of art her whole life. She started making art as a child, mostly doodling and abstract painting. At the beginning of her 20’s she started making greeting cards and that is where her love of collage began. Her work has since evolved to include not only paper but also paint, block printing, stencilling and image transfer to add more dimension to her designs.

Artist Statement

I love paper. I love touching paper and the meditative quality of cutting paper.

I am very deliberate in the images I choose in my work. I don’t use random elements. I spend a great deal of time searching for images and their meanings. Each piece has to have a connection with the other.

While assembling the various pieces that make up my collages I get great pleasure from the process of trying to marry different images and mediums together and watching the work unfold. Consciously, I have an idea of where I want the work to go but my unconscious is undisputedly the one in charge. I am often surprised at where the work takes me. My original ideas tend to morph into something quite unexpected and that strikes me as magical.