Collage and Mixed Media Artworks by Chloé Surprenant
Chloé Surprenant lives and works between Montreal and Amsterdam. In her artistic practice, the artist merges collage and mixed media painting, creating dark, grimy images that embrace the unknown and a sense of the Other.
I like the overall sense of texture and visual rhetoric in Chloé’s art portfolio. The artist builds a cumulative mood and atmosphere through works that utilize a very cohesive visual language, each seeming like a fragment of a possible, mysterious whole. There’s a strong narrative sensibility to many of these works, with figures arranged in surreal compositions that suggest a deeper symbolic meaning that might be different for each viewer.
The artist favours earthy neutral hues, with greys and sepia tones factoring prominently in works across the years. Recent pieces, from 2018 to 2020, utilize collage elements that are themselves sometimes damaged -- whether purposefully or naturally, one can only guess. Figures from old-fashioned photos with scratched-out faces, layered over disparate settings, add to a sense of foreboding.
