Denis Lessard
Professional visual artist
Originally from Sherbrooke, Denis Lessard grew up in Quebec City before settling in the Greater Montreal region in the 1980s. It was partly due to constant encouragement from his family and friends and his studies in art history (especially contemporary art history) that he developed a growing passion for the visual arts.
Throughout his prolific career, Denis has also had the opportunity to work as an art critic, translator, guest curator, art history lecturer, and more recently, document and archive management consultant in the area of culture. It is precisely archival practice that informed his artistic process by hybridizing part of his creative work. The recipient of several creation grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and travel grants from the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec, he was awarded the Louis-Comtois Prize by Montréal’s Association of Contemporary Art Galleries (AGAC) in 1994.
His artwork appears in several public and private collections, including the Art Bank of the Canada Council for the Arts, Library and Archives Canada, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, and the Prêt d’œuvres d’art du Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec collection. His creative work addresses various themes, including male identity, spirituality, and the relationships between literature, music and the visual arts. What he values most during his artistic process is research and reflection, reading, and collaboration with other artists.
