Manuel Mathieu is a multidisciplinary artist working across painting, ceramics, olfaction, film, and installation. Shaped by his childhood in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, following the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship, and his subsequent move to Montreal at the age of 19, his work explores memory, historical violence, and spiritual heritage through a sensorial relationship with the land and the living world.

Forms emerge and dissolve, resisting singular interpretations. A piece of burned fabric can evoke both historical violence and desire; painting can become a site of encounter between erasure and inner strength; and his films navigate experiences of displacement and rupture, opening up possibilities for transformation and collective resilience.

Increasingly immersive and multisensory, Mathieu’s works engage the body as much as the eye. He is currently presenting two major bodies of work at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.