About the Artists

Isabelle Demers lives and works in Québec City, where she graduated from a Masters program in Visual Arts at the Université Laval in 2012. Her artistic practice revolves around drawing, painting and installation. Her work has been seen multiple times in both solo and group exhibitions in galleries and artist-run centers. In 2012, she was awarded the prestigious Prix Videre for an emerging artist following her exhibition Lourd comme un cheval mort presented at La Chambre Blanche (Québec City, Qc).

Starting out with their own individual artistic practices, Isabelle Demers and Fanny Mesnard have found common ground in their fascination for the poetic and expressive forces of animal and vegetal forms associated with the boreal forest, the northern coniferous forest ecosystem that covers most of inland Canada. Their artistic collaboration allows them to put forth their ecological concerns while generating generous animalistic projects that promote nature in urban spaces. The two artists have been working together on common projects since 2014 but have been operating as the public art duo Demers-Mesnard since 2016.

Happy Castaways was originally created for Passages Insolites, a public art circuit design by EXMURO and presented by the City of Quebec.

Fanny Mesnard is a multidisciplinary artist whose drawings inspire her thinking. Her visual universe is peopled with hybrid characters evoking the animistic beliefs and fabrications that inhabit and condition human relationships with nature. Fanny Mesnard graduated from École supérieure des beaux-arts de Marseille in 2004, and completed her studies for a PhD in art studies from Université du Québec à Montréal in 2014. Her work has been presented in several exhibitions, including Art Mûr in Montreal, the International Contemporary Art Symposium of
Baie-Saint-Paul, Centre national d’exposition de Jonquière and Centre culturel franco-manitobain in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She lives and works in Québec City.

fannymesnard.com