Dominic Besner

1965

Dominic Besner was born in North Lancaster, Ontario, in 1965. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in architecture at the Université de Montréal, in 1992. His training as an architect a few years earlier, at Algonquin College, in Ottawa, had a tremendous influence on his art practice. Fantastical settings and characters from the commedia dell’arte populate Besner’s paintings, in the same vein as Otto Dix and Nicolas de Crécy. Using mixed materials and techniques on canvas, Besner favours oil pastel, acrylic, structural mortar, markers, and spray paint, while also employing a finger-based application technique and canvas scraping. His work is included in many collections, both public and private, in Canada and abroad.