About Niwan YOD

Canadian artist, painter and sculptor, Niwan YOD, travels the world and is based in Quebec's beautiful Gaspe Coast. 

Her love for art began with her mother who attended Montreal Beaux-Arts School and let her use all of her artist material from a very young age.  From then on, she dedicated her free time to the study of different art forms, ranging from photography, drawing, clay modelling and painting.  She also attended university-level art history classes as part of her BA studies. 

It is upon meeting with first mentor artist Gilles Cote in 2007 that her professional career started as an artist.  In 2009, she was invited by the Barriere Casino Group in Biarritz, France, to exhibit her work and recalls, not without a smile, sharing a Sud-Ouest newspaper page with then President Chirac. Her visits to Germany, Great Britain, France and Italy were spent touring museums and studying art history and the works of the Great masters. In 2010, more international collectors, private and corporate, started acquiring her work. In 2011, her artwork was shown for the first time at the Toronto International Art Fair and earned praise from both artists and the public. Since 2013, her work is being presented in Canadian-Quebecois museums. That same year, she started a representation with Galerie Lamoureux Ritzenhoff Gallery in Old Montreal.  

Critical of society's attempt to mould individuals' responses away from their true nature, Niwan YOD's paintings and drawings speak of untamed beings, awareness, freedom, detachment, love, respect and unity. 

Multidisciplinary artist first and foremost, she enjoys trying out new techniques, blending media, styles (contemporary figurative and abstract work) and supports.  Her research aims at finding unusual and original effects so to engage into a different aesthetic and kinesthetic dialogue with viewers. She is a keen observer of lines and shades and believes they are the key to successfully convey inner emotions.  Portraiture of people and animals are often (but not always) the starting point for most artwork. The initial trigger for any artwork can be compared to a calling and the artist let ideas flow so to guide her research for each piece.  Sometimes you may find her searching for magazines in antique stores or at the local used bookstore for some material. Some of her paintings can become long-term projects as she believes each artwork has its own pace. Her quest for authenticity translates into listening to what the support is asking her to do even it means creating a whole new pictural world and leap into the unknown.

Niwan’s sculpture collection includes pieces found over a two year period. Long drying, cleaning, sanding and finishing processes are required in order to guarantee stability of the material used.  Therefore, each piece comes with a wooden crate and a certicate guarantying its authenticity and solidity.

Her painting and drawing collection explores expressive gestural through acrylic ink. Indigeneous and fauna themes from her surroundings have inspired her work. 

YOD's brush-hand-towel strokes attempt to capture emotional vibrations through rythmic lines and shades.  There is a sense of musicality she kind of "hears" in the silence of her work. Inspired by Japanese art, she practices one touch painting so to give more liveliness to her art and thus must accept to face imperfection in her quest for perfection.

Niwan is a YoChi practitioner while painting her artwork. She believes the “chi” travels through the brushstrokes like the Japanese Samurai believed also. Her live work gives a sense of calm hypnosis  leading to a sense of serenity through the chaos.