fugitifs! faces rediscovered

A comic book author and illustrator, Paul Bordeleau has worked as an editorial illustrator for La Presse and Voir, and has contributed to several anthologies, festivals, and magazines. His illustrations appeared in the opening credits of the TV series La Galère, which aired from 2007 to 2013 on Radio-Canada. He has published the series Faüne (La Pastèque) and Le 7e vert (La Pastèque). Recently, he illustrated Patrick deWitt’s novel Sortie côté tour (Alto) and designed the cover for the book Le Montréaler (Somme toute). His comic book adaptation of the play Pour réussir un poulet by author, storyteller, director, and actor Fabien Cloutier will be published in August 2020 by La Pastèque. He is one of three authors in the La Shop à Bulles workshop, located at La Maison de la littérature in Old Quebec.

Dimani Mathieu Cassendo (he/she/they) is an author and illustrator. Their fantasy and science fiction works are inclusive, pro-Black, and pro-queer. Their most recent publication, Ère, Mère, Terre (2020), produced in collaboration with AQOCI, addresses environmental violence.

Djief (real name Jean-François Bergeron) is a comic book author born in 1971 in Quebec. With a degree in graphic design and experience in computer graphics and video games, he turned to the ninth art in the early 2000s, creating short stories for the magazine Spirou based on scripts by Alcante. Later, with Nicolas Jarry, he published the series Le Crépuscule des dieux with Soleil, and subsequently, working solo, two two-part series: one a science fiction story titled White Crows and the other set in 1920s New York titled Broadway: Une rue en Amérique. After a trilogy set in the world of Les Liaisons dangereuses, written by Stéphane Betbeder and published by Glénat, he continues to work with Betbeder on a new series for a general audience titled Créatures, which will be released in 2020 by Dupuis.

An illustrator born to lumberjack parents from Abitibi, currently living in Quebec City.

Kaia’tanó:ron Dumoulin Bush is an illustrator and visual artist of Onkwehonwe descent based in Oshahrhè:’on (Châteauguay, Quebec). She uses drawing, painting, sculpture, and performance to address contemporary Indigenous issues and to confront and heal her own intergenerational trauma. In 2018, she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Indigenous Visual Culture from OCAD University (Toronto). Her work has been exhibited at the Daphne Art Center in Montreal (2021), as part of Nuit Blanche in Toronto (2017), and at the Gisborne Gallery in New Zealand (2023). She has created several public art murals in collaboration with MU (Montreal).

My name is Kaysun Oke , I am a Mohawk woman of the turtle clan from Kanehsatake. I have been creating and selling my art since 2019. I create drawings out of pointillism and since there I branched off and worked with wood. I create custom pieces of pyrography art on wood. My style’s influenced by nature. I like to do research on animals and incorporate elements of its habitat to be factual. I also create beadwork jewelry such as earrings, bracelets, and medallions. Since the arrival of my 3rd baby in late 2024 I started to sew baby moccasins and wraps. The possibilities are endless, and I am constantly learning and trying to share what I have learnt through workshops or through kits.

A painter and muralist, MALICIOUZ is a Montreal-based visual artist of Haitian descent known for her Afro, urban, and contemporary art. Her artistic approach is characterized by the strength of spirit that emanates from her characters—primarily Black women—whom she portrays in her works as monumental figures. In 2018, MALICIOUZ presented her most recent solo exhibition, titled Matriarche. She organized a lecture as part of this exhibition. She has also been invited on several occasions to serve as a panelist at conferences at the Universities of Sherbrooke, McGill, and Concordia, as well as at the Federal Correctional Training Centre and other arts centers and galleries, to share her vision of Afrofuturism, graffiti culture, and the role of women and Black people in Quebec society and the arts community. In recent years, she has participated in several group exhibitions at the Fresh Paint Gallery, OCAD University, Espace Mushagalusa, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts—which presented the exhibition Le 4e mur—and the National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec as part of the exhibition Fugitifs. She has also exhibited at the Hôtel Ivoire in Abidjan as part of the Afropolitain Nomades festival. She has performed numerous live painting demonstrations, such as at the Joliette Art Museum and at Art Battle competitions, where she has been the winner on several occasions. Her works are now part of the public collections of Canadian Heritage, the Michaëlle Jean Foundation, and the City of Sorel-Tracy. Passionate and determined to share her art with the rest of the world, MALICIOUZ continues her journey through the creation of mural art, notably at the Under Pressure Graffiti Festival, in the streets of Montreal and Brooklyn, as well as in Haiti, where she created six collaborative murals in several cities as part of the “Art of Uniting” project. Recently, she has created murals in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, as well as in Douala, Cameroon, where she participated in the Douala’Music Art Festival.

After earning a degree in graphic communications from Laval University in Quebec, Caroline Soucy began her career as an illustrator in 1993. She created numerous scientific and historical illustrations. In 1998, an opportunity to work on the development of a video game allowed her to break into the industry. She held the positions of illustrator and art director at Sarbakan in Quebec City. At that studio, she helped create more than 50 video games for companies such as Disney, Nickelodeon, and Warner Brothers. In 2011, she joined Ubisoft Quebec as a concept artist. She notably worked on the games “Syndicate” and “Odyssey” from the Assassin’s Creed franchise. In her free time, she also writes comic books and children’s books. Her first comic, L’asticot, was published in issues 10, 12, and 15 of the magazine Planches. A children’s comic, “Zazi et les monstres,” was recently published in the magazine “J’aime lire Québec” in November 2017. In May 2019, she left Ubisoft to work independently as an illustrator, comic book author, and children’s book author.

Richard Vallerand has more than 20 years of experience in storyboarding and comics. He has worked in this capacity on several animated feature films and commercials. This experience led him to the video game industry and to the founding of Sarbakan. As creative director, he wrote and contributed to the graphic design of interactive comics published on the websites of several American content publishers, such as Nickelodeon and Disney Interactive. Beginning in 2011, he devoted himself exclusively to comics and joined the studio La shop à bulles. Since then, he has published L’arbre à Murphy in the anthology Forêt et bucheron, published by Glénat. He is a regular contributor to Curium magazine with his series Les Laborats, the first two volumes of which were published by Michel Quintin. He also illustrated Automne rouge, a graphic novel written by André-Philippe Côté and published by La Pastèque. His work appears regularly in Planches magazine and with Bayard Canada.

Born in 1979, Valérie Morency (ValMO) is an author and illustrator originally from Quebec City who lives and works in Montreal. She has always had a genuine passion for drawing and storytelling. She studied graphic design at Cégep de Sainte-Foy and advertising illustration at Collège Salette in Montreal. ValMO then worked in the video game industry as an illustrator, art director, and graphic designer. Since 2014, she has been working as a freelance illustrator. Alongside her professional career, she continues to develop her artistic approach, pushing the boundaries of her drawing and narrative techniques to create a world all her own.

Amel Zaazaa is a self-taught painter. As a feminist portrait artist, she advocates for a decolonial representation of women’s bodies and, through her work, celebrates the stories of resilience and struggle of women of color.